Apart from how pathetic Soimon was in the house yesterday, another significant own goal occurred. I hope people noticed!
Judith, fangs metaphorically dripping blood, a supercilious smile on her face, asked her usual biting question of Phil Twiford. It seems some first home buyers under the KiwiBuild scheme were able to raise the whole cost of a new home – a figure of $650,000 was mentioned.
How could this be possible, Jude demanded? You could see from her attitude she really thought she had Phil by the short and curlies this time. The baying chorus in the background thought so to! The implication being that KiwiBuild is being exploited by the wealthy:
Hon Judith Collins: Does the criteria for KiwiBuild pre-qualification reflect his statement that "this Government is committed to providing the opportunity for home ownership to families who are currently locked out of purchasing their first home."?
Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Yes.
Hon Judith Collins: Is he concerned that official documents show that five of the pre-qualified KiwiBuild buyers had deposits of between $500,000 to $650,000—effectively, meaning they could buy their KiwiBuild house with cash?
Hon PHIL TWYFORD: No. The data the member is referring to is raw data, unchecked. It's very clear that, for a number of the entries, the data had been entered into the online form on the KiwiBuild website by prospective KiwiBuild buyers incorrectly. In fact, Radio New Zealand, who first reported this story, was told by the KiwiBuild unit that a number of the examples where people had entered what seemed to be a large deposit were cases where, in fact, people had assumed they were supposed to enter the total budget for the house. So, for the purposes that the member is trying to use it, the data is quite unreliable.
Egg (to mix a metaphor) on Jude’s face! She only managed a couple of lame follow-up questions before she shut up. Perhaps Jude’s source within KiwiBuild had set her up?
What Helen Clark lacked in charisma she more than made up for with competence and political nous. Bridges is lacking (and leaking!) in every department.
Well that's good in the circumstances isn't it Sanctuary?
Unfortunately, he has zero charisma and zero charm and zero gravitas so it just comes across as mindless, insincere and slightly hysterical.
You make it sound like something undesirable. I thought you were for the Left. If so you don't need to criticise the Right for not being up to much in your opinion. Let them wallow and encourage the Left to do the best they can with the constraints they have.
As Margaret Thorn said in the title of her book – her memoirs, ‘Stick out, keep left’, published posthumously in 1997.
I know this will be controversial and will probably reflect poorly on me, but I just can't help but feeling a little sorry for him…there I said it.
And yes of course I know and understand that his political ideology is wrong in the head, and hurts the most vulnerable in our society, that his ideology destroys workers rights and the planet etc and so on…actually now that I have typed this out..fuck him, hope it hurts, maybe it will teach him a lesson in humility, but I doubt it.
I'm hearing you and at a guess you feel that way because you are a caring person and that's nothing to feel bad about, instead having caring feels is something to be proud of.
Personally, I don't get angry re simon like I did with john key, instead I end up erupting into gales of laughter and disbelief that his party still backs him.
This week especially he seems to have completely lost his mojo (if he ever had any) question time yesterday was a shocker… I wonder what today will bring.
I hope everyone has taken the time to watch Melanie Reid's report on Oranga Tamariki's attempt to forcibly remove a newborn baby from his mother.
If these 'social workers' are the pick of the Hawke's Bay crop then no fucking wonder there has been little improvement in 'outcomes' for struggling families being 'supported by Oranga Tamariki.
To be honest, I began watching this program with my cynical hat in place…surely this baby is at extreme risk of harm?
There was risk…but not from the young mother…she was being punished for the failings of her family….a situation I am all too familiar with when it comes to CYFs. My last encounter of this nature was over ten years ago…and nothing has changed.
Arrogant, power crazed and incredibly stupid social workers employed by an organsiation that clearly couldn't coordinate a bonk in a brothel much less uplifting a baby from a maternity unit.
And now it appears Oranga Tamariki are suing Newsroom…
Our closest friend here in Australia is a social worker. We know her very well. She is the exact opposite of 'arrogant, power crazed and stupid'. She tells us often of the awful stress of a job where you never know when something terrible is going to go wrong … and while you had no control over it, you will get the blame.
Oranga Tamariki is however tasked with just one job, protecting children. It is not there to fix families or solve social ills. It cannot deal with poverty, drugs, mental health, violence or abuse … that is the role of other agencies. Inevitably if a child if removed the mother will be aggrieved; yet no-one asks if the child was not removed and is then harmed what will the mother feel then? There can be no winners in this sad calculus.
There is every reason to demand excellence and high professional standards from social workers, who clearly have a difficult job to do. If the unit in Hawkes Bay is struggling a review and increased support is needed. If their managers are burned out and cynical, they need to be reassigned to other roles less critical.
Oranga Tamariki is however tasked with just one job, protecting children. It is not there to fix families or solve social ills.
Err… Whatever the reason, we focus first and foremost on the needs of the child or young person. We work together with families and whānau to resolve any issues, and ensure whānau get the help and support they might need to provide a safe, stable and loving home.
(I am trying to provide excerpts that will convey just wrong those social workers were to treat this young family like criminals.)
Te Huia says whānau believed they were the right people to care for their own and were doing all they could to address and comply with OT’s concerns and expectations
Aside from both grandmothers leaving troubled and violent home lives, the young mother had attended antenatal courses and undertaken a family violence course. A care plan had been created which planned for the young mother and her baby to stay in a whare which supports young Māori mothers for the first six months where she would have around-the-clock care and a multi-disciplinary care team had been initiated around addressing the family’s needs.
Fair enough I overstated the position, but ultimately case workers will be held responsible for the child's welfare and this will always be their first priority.
Clearly it shouldn't be their only priority, helping families to the extent possible and keeping children safe with their whanau is obviously the desirable outcome. But it seems that all too often that's a gamble OT staff are not willing to take. Maybe that does come back to a blame oriented internal culture as I suggested above.
But it seems that all too often that's a gamble OT staff are not willing to take.
A cursory peruse of articles about children dying at the hands of whanau will disprove that statement. In many, many cases CYFs were involved and failed to keep the children safe. In at least one case they very probably caused the abuser to kill the children.
Yes…some kids need uplifting now…don't piss around…
Others, like the whanau above, had been making real efforts with coordinated help and those numpties rode rough shod over everyone.
RL There has been a lot of talk about agencies working together.
But if they are always treating crises and making them also at times, they probably can't set the wheels in motion to co-ordinate with other agencies. They need to be working with a partner in another agency perhaps who they can work well with and immediately work out best way to handle cases for effectiveness.
Rosemary M Here is a John Mortimer story – Rumpole and the Children of the Devil. I haven't watched it myself yet but it is based on a written story with the same name. I thought after your comments about Oranga Tamariki that you would like his window onto what he refers to ironically in the story as 'the caring profession'.
First he explains the background to the story – but his words are voiced by a woman – probably something to do with legal or technological ties.
Gabby. It just struck me that while CYFs, Oranga Tamariki (or whatever they are called today) demand that parents make significant changes in their lives in order to retain custody of their children, they themselves appear wholly incapable as a government agency of making the kinds of changes required to perform their role without causing further trauma.
Someone needs to remind them, again, that a mere name change is not good enough.
A fundamental culture change is needed…which is what they should be supporting that young mother to achieve.
First change I would make to give her and her two children a chance..try and make the average NZ accept that every one needs a roof over their head. Not a car roof, not a temporary shelter roof, not a kiwibuild (trickle down housing policy) but an actual place to call home to raise their children.
Last night around 400 children in the Hawkes Bay alone, slept in motels as a direct result of homelessness and unaffordable housing.
To say nothing of the hundreds who will have slept in overcrowded, possibly dysfunctional, possibly violent households..because they simply have no options.
Homelessness, and equally the constant grinding fear of homelessness, is basicaly the number one punishment our society is willing to inflict upon thousands of families and individuals..despite that fact it pretty much guarantees poor outcomes.
Wrap around services and 'plans' are all very well for this young woman, her babies and her partner…but even the best parent's in the world, are living on the edge of disaster if they are unable to settle in a home.
Years ago we used to foster kids from SIPS, after dealing with their relentless bullshit for a couple of years I had a big angry spin out and after a lots of calls managed to talk to someone well up the food chain. He asked me, "what is the one thing we can do to help make this work better for you and the children you foster", I said I want a flashing signal that flashes every time someone from your organization opens any of our files that says "Don't fuck these people around!", they couldn't have followed my very precise instructions because they kept doing exactly what I asked them not to do.
After caring for a baby in very similar circumstances to Reid's article and finding ourselves the only people on the stage batting for the young mum (to the point of putting in a complaint to the Children's Commission about CYF's handling of the case) we found ourselves on their shit list.
Despite either myself or my partner phoning the CYFs office every day for nearly two months to find out when the Care Plan for this infant was going to arrive we were chastised for 'not communicating' after we complained to the Commission.
We had spoken to a couple who had fostered some thirty years prior to us, and they were saying exactly the same things.
I was told at the outset by friends who knew what they were talking about, that while our intentions were good and right, we were like babes in the woods as far as CYF's were concerned, and it would probably end badly, which it didn't but it was a very unsatisfactory experience to say the least.
That being said I don't regret for minute the decision to get involved, the kids who came through got to exist in a pretty happy, somewhat functional and loving home for a while, and that was not nothing for some of them.
That being said I don't regret for minute the decision to get involved, the kids who came through got to exist in a pretty happy, somewhat functional and loving home for a while, and that was not nothing for some of them.
We signed up for emergency and respite care so over 60 children got to have that same experience. There were none who did not need to be in care for at least a short time while the grown ups were assisted by Child, Youth and Family to get their shit sorted.
Trouble is, while we did our bit and kept the kids safe and happyish…CYFs often did sfa to sort out the family.
True that, we had one kid with us for quite a while (over 12 months) and he came out of CYF care while with us, even though this young man had been in their care in one form or another since he was a baby, they had not set up even one thing to help prepare him for his entry in to the wide world, they were in a word…useless.
Its all very well and good to carry on about 'uplifting', but what help are these young parents going to get in future?
Good point. And I don't think there was anyone in NZ (other than Tariana) who was cheering on the Whanau Ora concept louder than myself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wh%C4%81nau_Ora
Sadly, and despite Tariana throwing family carers under the bus at the 2013 Budget in return for an extra 1.2 billion bucks towards Maori initiatives including WO…it seems to have come to sfa.
Hawkes Bay has horrendous stats for social dysfunction and you'd think with an active and engaged local iwi there would have been strides made…
BUT…in this particular case there were interventions being made and support structures in place which were ignored and dismissed by the OT social workers.
What are they trying to hide – nice the high charging lawyers are involved – that will help the situation get worse.
Children's agency Oranga Tamariki went to court yesterday seeking orders for cuts to a Newsroomvideo story on a controversial 'uplift' of a Māori baby.
The ministry engaged law firm Kensington Swan and partner Linda Clark to file an urgent memorandum with the Family Court asking for Newsroom to be ordered to change the story by investigations editor Melanie Reid.
marty mars…I have this theory. The un- announced uplifting of Maori babies in certain areas is obviously a problem. The deep involvement and activism from these Maori midwives (who seem to be seriously on to it) and their lawyer has led to them forming a plan to gain as much media publicity as possible…because that's simply how the system works.
They had Reid primed and ready to go on speed dial should another uplift be imminent.
Then they just sat back with the cameras rolling (so to speak) and let those Oranga Tamariki social workers damn themselves and the organisation they work for.
Seems like the OT case against Newsroom smacks of another Lashlie…
Whistleblower Celia Lashlie deserved to be sacked by the Special Education Service last year, her former boss, chief executive Peter Cowley, told MPs yesterday.
An uproar followed Ms Lashlie's dismissal after she spoke out about at-risk children by describing a blond, angelic five-year-old boy from Nelson who was headed for prison. The service said that she had breached client confidentiality. But a month later chairman Graham Lovelock had to resign when an inquiry found she had been unfairly treated.
I just watched the show – so bad. With 3 Māori babies a week being taken then they may have had a few choices but this process for this whānau and young mother seems so shocking.
This isn't going to be able to happen like this anymore – this is going to change.
I was aware of this when it happened but watching really drives how bad the whole thing is. I had to watch even though I didn't want to. It was horrible.
We refer to the question: What sort of creature man’s next successor in the supremacy of the earth is likely to be. We have often heard this debated; but it appears to us that we are ourselves creating our own successors; we are daily adding to the beauty and delicacy of their physical organisation; we are daily giving them greater power and supplying by all sorts of ingenious contrivances that self-regulating, self-acting power which will be to them what intellect has been to the human race. In the course of ages we shall find ourselves the inferior race.
Day by day, however, the machines are gaining ground upon us; day by day we are becoming more subservient to them; more men are daily bound down as slaves to tend them, more men are daily devoting the energies of their whole lives to the development of mechanical life. The upshot is simply a question of time, but that the time will come when the machines will hold the real supremacy over the world and its inhabitants is what no person of a truly philosophic mind can for a moment question.
What 1863? Sure it's not 1963? Is that our curse that we can look and imagine so far into the future, and not make enough headway so that society takes note and the leaders consider that thinking as prescient and important and act in accordance with it. Oh for dreams like Back to the Future. The saddest two words in the English language – If only! Have we not looked for persons of a truly philosophic mind when we choose our leaders? Have we any now? And what classification of the minds of our civil servants – are they just basically practical and commonsense people wanting to meet targets so they can get their pay and hopefully, promotion?
Edit.
…giving them greater power and supplying by all sorts of ingenious contrivances that self-regulating, self-acting power which will be to them what intellect has been to the human race. In the course of ages we shall find ourselves the inferior race.
Trundling down Onewa Rd this morning – able to use the T3 so not too bad, In the non-T3 lane, the looks on people's faces! Boredom, despair, and outright depression. How did this pointless, life-sapping stupidity come about?
And the signs from "tiny Dan the economist man" Bidois calling for AT to 'fix' Onewa Rd. No Dan – what we need to fix is the insane need for everyone to be on the road at the same time. It's clear that just about everyone works way too much. We need a much shorter working week and public transport free at the point of use. The realm of freedom begins where the realm of necessity ends.
There are a multitude of ways that a "four day week" can be applied other than the one most recently reported on as a success incl details of how accommodation was made for those who it did or did not suit.
It is all about thinking on your feet, productivity and outcomes and will be a vital part of "the future of work".
Most families have couples working a four day week planned to accommodate two days off immediately reduces the need for full-time or before and after childcare and children farmed out to that less. It can also be a five day but lesser hour day that also caters to younger children's need for adult care and the better productivity achieved in the Perpetual Guardian trial. Besides my husband's business I worked in the private sector as an employee eventually part-time by my choice but completed as many, and some times more, tasks in my 24 hours than others who just occupied their seats often chatting/fiddling for their eight hour day pay.
Finally in regard to some physically active occupations as per my husband's business of laying infrastructure once a contract was won and agreed it almost always had a fairly clear timeline. With some urging and encouragement he recognised that one option was four ten hour days that meant that travel and loading and unloading gear plus set-up was immediately effectively not required for the fifth day that was once worked.
Another aspect that worked had similar set-up savings and that was for example a good run and good planning often meant what may have been estimated as an approx eight week job may often be completed in seven or so weeks. Some businesses will have staff doing meaningless "maintenance" yes that must be done and the time is ideal but punitively requiring staff to turn up for hours for the rest of a week before the next job begins is pointless.
It also meant good will extended to staff work five days when necessary and have the option to accrue "lieu" days – eventually it became a bit of a tradition to have a few of those built up so around Easter no\ jobs were set down to start, all jobs were set to be completed and around that time the lieu days were added to the Easter break for a bit of a build up into winter.
Thinking as you seem to do that the benefits are not there and people need to work and functional in a one size fits all, rigid and inflexible work regime is of no use to anything particularly the productivity improvements NZ needs.
Unbelievably the relentless Russia conspiracy theorist and general nutter Rachel Maddow will moderate first Democratic debates. They could most probably have had more balance if it was hosted by someone from Fox…the clip from below is from 2018, and she still hasn't stopped going on and on and on and on and on and on…..
George Orwell's doublespeak in real time, right in front of our eyes….although this sort of thing coming straight from the hated Whitehouse will help Corbyn not hurt him IMO.
Pompeo pledges not to wait for Britain’s elections to ‘push back’ against Corbyn and anti-Semitism
"Secretary of State Mike Pompeo weighed in on British politics during a closed-door meeting with Jewish leaders, saying he would not wait for Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn to become prime minister of Britain to “push back” against him or any future actions he might take against Britain’s Jews."
Dianne Crossman, starts her drum beat again to raise the age, despite that such a move will plunge thousands of people into hardship. Especially those who have spent most of their lives in insecure jobs with very low incomes, or on benefits due to medical conditions. The thought of having to wait 2 more years to get NZ Super will break a lot of people. Not that she gives a shit.
Personally I think the age should be dropped back to 60, as I see there are a lot of 60-65 year olds in much hardship, thrown under the bus by their wealthy property owning peers who voted for lower taxes and benefit cuts.
Suggesting raising the age for the pension (superannuation) is a case of bias based on 'my' experience and knowledge trumping any other considerations. I think from my knowledge and experience that a lot of our policy makers, leaders and 'thinkers' come at their task with their minds clear and untramelled by any conflict or confusion of differing opinion and information.
She rightly points out that there are large numbers of older people who are very fit and who are continuing to work and earn past 65. She also points out that people are living longer, (and that can mean that they are receiving the pension for old age for a third of their adult lives).
But simply looking at the cost of the pension to those people, and arbitrarily shifting the threshold age up is a 'commonsense' response to the problem. Having to hunt for jobs when your abilities are not in demand is often hard and soul-breaking up to 65, so no extension of age is going to make the task easier and would be a nasty blow to people under stress of poverty. Also with the decreasing lack of full-time jobs that pay for all living costs in New Zealand, people over 65 filling some that would have been available to younger people, merely pushes the welfare cost down to a younger age. For someone who has a senior well-paying job, to work on for years prevents others on the ladder from rising and building their own savings for retirement, and their seniority and experience is not then fully realised and utilised by their employer.
This appears to be the case with Outgoing Retirement Commissioner Diane Maxwell. (Diana Crossan was Retirement Commissioner for ten years and was replaced by Diane Maxwell.) She is someone who has worked extremely hard in England, owned an advertising business, then in finance consultancy, retail banking and became Regulator of the Financial Markets Authority.
Diane Maxwell has been outspoken about the need to increase the pension age from 65….
Maori and Pacific people also currently have lower life expectancies but Maxwell said that was something to fix outside pension settings. "My partner is Samoan. My son is half-Samoan. I wouldn't want to raise him saying you get super earlier because you're Samoan – what does that say to him? It tells him it's a done deal. I don't think that's right."
Despite:
Researchers Michael Littlewood and Michael Chamberlain have said there is no need for panic.
In their response to Maxwell's 2016 review, they said: "We know that the population aged 65-plus will about double over coming decades and that the costs of healthcare and New Zealand Super will increase substantially if current settings remain. These two major government programmes will be the most directly affected by the ageing population. However, we also know that New Zealand's economy will grow and, barring catastrophes, we should as a country be able to afford more than we currently pay for the age-related programmes…
Forty-four per cent of people aged 65 to 69 are still working and that is expected to increase in future. Others continue even longer. Some of them are even serving as the country's deputy prime minister…
Maxwell said the country had passed a tipping point where most people at 65 were healthy, fit and active and did not see themselves as pensioners…
"If you think about the original intention of super in 1898 back then we weren't expected to make it much past that. Then it went to 60 then back to 65 but where we've got to now, our life expectancy is much longer. Women should expect to get to mid or late 80s, and men mid 80s, broadly. You used to get super for five years, then 10 and now 20 – soon it'll be 30. I'm not sure how we can fund people getting super for 30 years or more."
Then there is the need to examine our financial system. There are ways that government could manage the system of support better. Many of our wealthy percentage now live better than kings and queens of past centuries. But they should not necessarily be cut off from the pension scheme, as they form a small percentage in the nation. There are people who apply their minds to problems within society who can be asked to form working groups and work with academics from the age group who know the problems. They would co-operate and interact through a blog such as this. Suggestions leading to pilot schemes for testing would be more acceptable if they came from the older age group themselves. Everyone doing some volunteer part-time work that utilised their past skills, or new ones that they would like to train for, which would be extra to tasks already employing people as agreed by government, would result in the country running more smoothly and better understanding between age and social classes. And there would be a drop in cost for welfare in other areas. This would not be necessarily pleasing to the wealthy class however, who seem to feel obliged to keep impacting on opportunities for betterment of the strugglers.
An understanding that an increase in cost of pensions does not necessarily mean ruin for the country is also necessary. This requires an understanding of how money is a created asset of will, and the various factors governing its effectiveness in keeping a nation thriving, and in maintaining its value for trading exchanges. Economists have wandered off onto paths that are not appropriate to follow further into our fast-changing future. But new approaches must be formed by others outside the tight measures of historic systems which are grimly held onto by the relative few who want to hold their ephemeral assets, and see their physical assets maintain value.
As someone who argued that super should not be paid to those still working way back in 1983 (a corrrespondence with Anne Hercus, who later brought in surtax), I do support paying super rate benefits to those not working after the age of 60 (unable to work or find work) and of course the income supplement for power to those on super and or benefits.
This is important as the cost of paying super to those working is limiting revenue for public education, health and housing (which could be significanly higher and government still be within 30% GDP).
The cost of paying super to those still working is over $3B pa and is rising fast – will be $5Bpa by the end of the decade.
Given the public interest in this and its importance as a litmus test for New Zealand's judicial system there is shamefully little coverage of this in the New Zealand media.
Kim's fate is as important as Julian Assange's. If the New Zealand government sends Kim to a dungeon in the United States it will mark the end of democracy in this country – as if we haven't already seen which way things are going
I had to search on Google for this. I check the RNZ site regularly.
The founder of file-sharing service Megaupload, Kim Dotcom, has entered the final appeal battle to try and challenge his extradition to the US, where he faces decades behind bars for copyright infringement charges.
The appeal hearings kicked off in New Zealand's Supreme Court on Monday. If the appeal fails, it will be up to the country's interior minister to decide whether to actually greenlight the extradition.
Dotcom has resided in New Zealand since 2010 and the US case against the Megaupload founder has resulted in a lengthy extradition battle. While it was greenlighted in 2015, it has been repeatedly appealed in various courts since then, ultimately getting to the top judiciary.
The founder of file-sharing service Megaupload, Kim Dotcom, has entered the final appeal battle to try and challenge his extradition to the US, where he faces decades behind bars for copyright infringement charges.
The appeal hearings kicked off in New Zealand's Supreme Court on Monday. If the appeal fails, it will be up to the country's interior minister to decide whether to actually greenlight the extradition.
Dotcom himself has repeatedly stated that the whole case is an attempt by the US government to further stomp on “web freedom” and if he's prosecuted, any internet provider can be held liable for the “misuse” of their services by the users.
His legal team maintains that the file-sharing service platform itself cannot be blamed for any copyright infringement by the end users. Supporters of the internet entrepreneur share a similar opinion, arguing that it will set a very dangerous precedent – for internet-based businesses.
New Zealand's Court of Appeal has just ordered the NZ govt(which will be down to the justice minister,Little) to reconsider the Amy Adams granted extradition of a Korean accused of the murder of a sex worker in China.
This is because apparently we can't just accept China's assurances that the suspect, if found guilty will not be executed , or tortured
Can we accept any US assurances that Dotcom will be treated fairly and in line with human rights?
Dotcom's "crime" is way below the charge of murder
Speaking of dungeons..given todays announcement of the US formally and fully requesting Assanges extradition..lets revisit and give a massive eye roll at the Guardians wording last month re;America beginning formally requesting extradition…
"Julian Assange has declined a chance to consent to his extradition to the US at a hearing in London as Washington started pressing its case to take him across the Atlantic."
Slightly off topic; more aligned with Julian Assange's case than Dot Com's, but this demonstrates also, how hopelessly useless NZ media is compared to……well
Russia
Russia's three top newspapers – @Vedomosti, @ru_rbc, and @kommersant – are running identical front pages tomorrow in solidarity with @meduzaproject reporter Ivan Golunov, who is facing up to 20 years in prison in apparent retaliation for his work.
I guess it's diverse if Alexei Gromov says it's diverse.
It is widely known that major Russian media outlets — especially television — are controlled by the government. But who actually manages the Kremlin’s grip? This is the story of Alexey Gromov, a former diplomat who has gained great influence and power as Vladimir Putin’s media puppetmaster.
In the spring of 2017, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in about 100 Russian cities to protest political corruption and other problems in national government.
Western media and Russian Internet news outlets published stories about the marches, many focusing on the police who brutally dispersed the crowds and arrested nearly 2,000 protesters. But Russian viewers of the country’s television channels saw little of this. For most of them, the May 26 protests never happened at all.
Described as an unassuming man whose passions include collecting antique coins, Gromov is nonetheless a key manager of the Putin government’s control over what gets said — or not — in Russia’s major print and broadcast media. He is also a co-creator of RT, the international propaganda network formerly known as Russia Today.
Its always been well known that the print media in Russia is way more diverse, unlike our own, and the TV is more aligned to govt viewpoints.Nothing new here
It seems unlikely those who ordered Mr Golunov’s prosecution could have guessed his arrest would prove so controversial and end with disgrace and suspensions. The reporter is not well known beyond liberal circles. And the Russian journalistic community is hardly known for acts of solidarity. But the journalist’s plight provoked an unprecedented multi-level response that surprised almost everyone watching.
Within hours of his detention making the news, hundreds of journalists were picketing the headquarters of Moscow police. Even stars of state propaganda offered messages of support. On Monday, Russia’s leading broadsheets led with the same front page in support of Mr Golunov. Again, this was a historical first and the entire print-run was snapped up before lunchtime.
“I hope with this story something has changed in this profession,” said Ms Timchenko. “I hope that the next time we are offended, attacked or worse, we will respond as one.”
Indeed it does, though it isn't 'us', its mainstream New Zealand media, print, digital, radio and TV.
It must be said though there are some fantastic NZ journalists: Max Rushbroke, David Slack, Chris Trotter, Mihingarangi Forbes, Kirsty Johnstone, Bryan Bruce.
More than any other case, a political decision should not come into it.
Bit late for that. The circumstances of the dodgy assault on his home scream "political decision," so one more here or there doesn't make much difference.
2. Hon SIMON BRIDGES to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her Government’s statements and actions in relation to the alleged unauthorised access of Budget 2019 material?
4.Hon AMY ADAMS to the Minister of Finance: Does he accept that clause 3.27 of the Cabinet Manual states he is individually accountable for Treasury’s actions in relation to the early release of Budget 2019 information, and at what specific time did Treasury first receive advice from the GCSB relating to the use of the term “hack”?
Bridges really is a glutton for punishment. IMO he is just making himself look like a fool acting like a broken record. LOL
The question by Amy Adams is of more interest IMO, because she appears to be trying to get around Trevor Mallard's Speaker ruling/warning yesterday in relation to her line of questioning of Robertson under Question 4. Mallard referred her to a ruling some years ago (2012) by Speaker Smith that it is not in the public interest to comment while an independent inquiry is underway.
As I mentioned in a reply I made earlier this morning @ 4.2.2,1. to one by mickysavage under Daily Review 11 June, the transcript of yesterday's Questions 1 and 2 by Bridges are worth reading carefully for the timeline and their exact wording – along with that of Question 4 where Adams (as a trained lawyer) tried to 'lead' Robertson in his answers to her questions but failed thanks to Mallard's preparation/anticipation of the tactic she used and Robertson's careful replies.
Here is the link to the transcript again for all yesterday's questions.
David Parker answered questions on behalf of minister responsible for the GCSB Andrew Little, giving a clear timeline of the events surrounding Hack-gate.
• 8:02pm – Treasury issued its press release advising there had been a deliberate and systemic hack and it had referred this to police
• 8:43pm – Mr Little's office first spoke to the GCSB
• 9:43pm – Mr Little spoke to the GCSB
• 9:52 pm – Mr Little contacted the prime minister's office
• 10:25pm – Mr Little contacted Finance Minister Grant Robertson via text message
(Wonder why the last Government was not put under the same intense scrutiny?)
[Note – I don’t like giving clickbaits to the Herald, but with this new comments system I seem unable to copy and paste into comments which is a real bore. The tool bar says that my browser doesn't enable pasting using the two paste icons in the tool bar and to use Control + Shift + V which does not work and just gives a row of vvvvvvvvvvvs ]
Agree re the last govt not having been subjected to the same level of scrutiny, but I really think that the “Bridges’ approach” is going to backfire on National in the longer term – and already is seen by many as a Wellington Beltway bore.
Test of using the Blockquote facility to paste. ummmm ………
Timeline Tuesday, May 28
• 10:01am: In a press release, National publishes what it claims to be details of the 2019 Budget •
11:30am: Finance Minister Grant Robertson confirms some of the details in National's release are from Budget 2019 •
Afternoon: National releases more Budget details •
2pm: National says its method of accessing the Budget information on the Treasury website is closed down.
bull; Before 6pm: The Treasury asks the cybersecurity unit of the Government Communications Security Bureau about how confidential information on its website was accessed. The GCSB says the Treasury's computer network was not compromised, and the matter should be referred to the police, given that it's not what the GCSB normally responds to •
6pm: Treasury Secretary Gabriel Makhlouf refers the matter to the police •
7pm to 7:15pm: Makhlouf meets Robertson in his Beehive office and tells him that he has called in the police. Robertson says that Makhlouf described it as 2000 attempts to "hack" the system. Meeting is later attended by Jacinda Ardern's chief press secretary Andrew Campbell and deputy chief of staff Raj Nahna. •
7:20pm: Robertson calls Ardern to inform her of latest developments • 8:02pm: The Treasury issues a press release saying it has "sufficient evidence" that it had been "deliberately and systematically hacked". It cites the GCSB advice in saying it has been referred to the police. •
8:19pm: Robertson issues a press release, asking National not to release any further information because "the material is a result of a systematic hack". •
8:43pm: The GCSB contacts the office of GCSB Minister Andrew Little to say it doesn't believe any systematic hacking took place. Little is in a meeting. The GCSB contacts the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to pass on its concerns, and Ardern is told soon afterwards. •
9:43pm: Little speaks with the GCSB and then tries to call Robertson. The call is not answered. •
9.52pm: Little contacts Nahna in Ardern's office to pass on the GCSB's concerns. •
10.25pm: Little texts Robertson about the GCSB's concerns. ;.
4.Hon AMY ADAMS to the Minister of Finance: Does he accept that clause 3.27 of the Cabinet Manual states he is individually accountable for Treasury’s actions in relation to the early release of Budget 2019 information, and at what specific time did Treasury first receive advice from the GCSB relating to the use of the term “hack”?
Treasury did not release the information early, it was obtained by the National Party using unauthorised access to confidential government information.
The time given is …. and they were also advised to take the matter of the National Party's unauthorised access to Treasury’s confidential information to the police.
It's my view that Bridges belatedly realised he committed a crime and is frantically diverting all over the shop in an attempt to set the agenda. A conviction would not just sink his political career, but call into question any future legal one as well.
And I know I'd never employ a lawyer who'd been so reckless as to leak the Budget and then crow about it after.
No wonder he cannot let it go; it's keeping him awake at night.
I think I may have accidentally stumbled on what was meant by a government that is 'transformational'. But it still doesn't explain the lack of "reinvention of government' or the lack of adequate "interaction with its citizens' (or various other things like being open and kind, or even some of the dithering).
I had been interrupted while doing a g-g-g-google on Oranga Tamariki (anxious to see why not much has changed, or is transformational), and government, then later (using the same unfulfilled g-g-g-google window) typing 'transformational'. Low and behold:
It possibly does explain things like demographic EXCEL spreadsheets and generic public servant managers entirely out of their depth though, and even deference to those 'officials' considered to be the experts. Maybe I should see 'Gabs' in a different light, and even why some of those 'progressive generic manager' types thought the use of T&C would be OK at the parliamentary corral. (Codes of Conduct, Purchase Agreements and Performance Appraisals ALL aside)
Maybe some of the failings are just down to 'The Computer Says NO'
In a former life as a Systems Programmer many years past, I've never forgotten what a couple of my managers said to me: One being one of those 10 pound Poms and expert in various network protocols, the other responsible for being the author of an entire operating system that supported our banking system for years.
"People should drive technology" and conversely "technology should not drive people".
By which they meant that people were the starting point, rather than here's a piece of technology, so now let's see what it can do for us.
Which is why we spent a lot of time determining what it was that 'people' – i.e. human beings' requirements were as the staring point, and if need be, developing and even manufacturing hardware to effect things like remote switching mechanisms, and 99.9% availability, etc. etc. etc.
I'm thinking that the day machinery is able to feel emotion, to empathise rather than sympathise and structure some templated version of a response, and the day it isn't versed in spin and obfuscation – unable to get its registers and storage knickers in a twist, is the day I'll renew my interest in things IT (as opposed to ICT). Probably also the day those generic managers will be out of business although really, they should be already ("ultimately, going forward")
is getting the right answer even if you weren’t planning it a good thing ?
many here have commented on the wrong direction the govt is heading re Kiwibuild (welfare for the middle class) instead of placing all the efforts into HNZ and those in need. Somehow we have in the short term got it right imo
If the government concentrated on one over the other, the house build programme would not carry widespread support – a recent poll showed people still support KiwiBuild.
KiwiBuild is a way to boost supply to constrain upward rents that is affordable – given the 30% government to GDP (and 20% debt target between now and 2022 this is important) limitation
PS It's inevitable sales will extend to those going from one bedroom flats and apartments to family homes.
The site went live at 9:30am on Tuesday and within minutes bookings for the 70 beds in huts along the track were full for December and January….
There has also been a rise in the number of New Zealand residents booking to walk the tracks.
DoC says the number of Kiwis booking has risen since last year and credits it to a "different pricing trial in place on four of the Great Walks". The Milford, Kepler, Routeburn and Abel Tasman Coast Tracks all have a special price for International visitors which is up to double the fees New Zealand residents will pay….
Further bookings for the Great Walk tracks are being released this week and are expected to be popular, Mr Taylor says, 'If it's anything like previous seasons you'll need to be in quick." Bookings for the tracks will come out on the following days:
Routeburn Track & Paparoa Track
Wednesday 12th June 2019, 9.30am
Abel Tasman Coast Track, Tongariro Northern Circuit & Kepler Track
Thursday 13th June 2019, 9.30am
(So get in Kiwis that can afford the cost to get in and enjoy. A great chance to enjoy your own scenic splendour while you can. Also it would be good if Kiwis had first dibs in the main holidays and in school holidays.) International visitors can have their opportunities outside our holidays- seems fair – we don't have that many.
I think we need more saints days and memorial days for past great luminaries!)
Vladimir Alexandrovich Kolokoltsev is a Russian politician and policeman who was the Moscow Police Commissioner from 2009 to 2012. He has been serving as Russian Minister of Internal Affairs from 21 May 2012.
Had a long meeting this morning with a couple of locals who carry some weight, left feeling rather uplifted as we are going to work together to help our community, especially the kids at the high school with mental health and bullying. Yay!!!!
In the past there have been various parent evenings or off campus talks, but those who attend aren't the people that necessarily need the help the most.
We want to get some prominent speakers to come and address the whole school, captive audience and all that. So are now taking steps to make it happen.
Found out the principal thinks that there is a mandate with the ministry of ed preventing such speakers coming to talk. So I rang the ministry of ed who said there is no such mandate. Made me wonder if there was such a mandate with the prior government. Turns out it's up to the BOT if they want it to happen, rather than the principal, and I know the BOT will be on our side with this 🙂
Will let you know how we get on. I've been racking my brains for a different anti bullying system as the one at school doesn't work. What I have figured out is, many of the bullies have their own issues. Am trying to find the common ground and it seems to be the mental health of all.
If I discover some awesome tools etc will def share. Kids around here are killing themselves, it's our towns dirty secret and needs to be addressed big time.
Feeling really positive about it all, it's great that a couple of well known high up community members are on board, that's a huge deal. Progress yay and motivation from the well being budget, excellent 🙂
That is the sort of action NZers should hope to see and be part of if they can, everything that can be improved or resolved is one problem less and is a "saving" – it is up to NZers to add momentum behind govt to improve NZers lives it is not just a money issue though that is necessary a changed mindset is crucial.
A good education will help you into a job and start to your adult life. An excellent education will place you above those with a good education.
Education Parents Gone Wild: High Drama Inside D.C.’s Most Elite Private School At Sidwell Friends, the high school of Chelsea Clinton and the Obama children, college counselors find themselves besieged by Ivy-obsessed families. 5/6/2019
School officials have repeatedly warned parents, who represent the pinnacle of elite Washington, about their offensive conduct. In January, the head of the school, Bryan Garman, sent a remarkable letter to parents of seniors in which he demanded that they stop “the verbal assault of employees.” He also reiterated a policy banning them from recording conversations with counselors and making calls to counselors from blocked phone numbers. Garman also suggested that some parents were responsible for the “circulation of rumors about students….”
Anger, vitriol, and deceptiveness have come to define highly selective college admissions. In the now notorious Varsity Blues scandal, the desire from wealthy parents to get their children into such elite institutions as Yale and the University of Southern California led them to lie on applications and obtain fake SAT scores. At Sidwell Friends, one of America’s most famous Quaker schools, the desire manifested itself in bad behaviors—including parents spreading rumors about other students, ostensibly so that their children could get a leg up, the letter said. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/06/sidwell-friends-college-admissions-varsity-blues/591124/
(Sidwell Friends, run by the Quakers – Heaven Knows, Anything Goes!)
I think this shows Affluenza.
In 2007, British psychologist Oliver James asserted that there was a correlation between the increasing occurrence of affluenza and the resulting increase in material inequality: the more unequal a society, the greater the unhappiness of its citizens.[5] Referring to Vance Packard's thesis The Hidden Persuaders on the manipulative methods used by the advertising industry, James related the stimulation of artificial needs to the rise in affluenza. To highlight the spread of affluenza in societies with varied levels of inequality, James interviewed people in several cities including Sydney, Singapore, Auckland, Moscow, Shanghai, Copenhagen and New York.
In 2008 James wrote that higher rates of mental disorders were the consequence of excessive wealth-seeking in consumerist nations.[6] In a graph created from multiple data sources, James plotted "Prevalence of any emotional distress" and "Income inequality", attempting to show that English-speaking nations have nearly twice as much emotional distress as mainland Europe and Japan: 21.6 percent vs 11.5 percent
Chlöe Swarbrick got owned by the Hosk this morning There is a time when a bit of life experience under your belt makes a difference, than simply quoting selective research papers on legalising pot I was in Portugal last year ( Lisbon) and smelt it everywhere day and night To say legalising pot won’t increase its propensity in society is silly at best
No idea what you’re talking about but I agree that individual and/or anecdotal ‘evidence’ always trumps research papers, each and every time. For example, I once knew a person who had been heavy smoker all his life and he lived until he was 85. So, to say that smoking causes lung cancer and kills is just rubbish. BTW, he died a horrible death from colon cancer because he used to smoke fish.
There is a time when a bit of life experience under your belt makes a difference, than simply quoting selective research papers…
Thank you for declaring this preference for anecdata that supports your personal prejudice over actual research. It explains a lot about your comments.
Note the proviso “selective” PM End of day people will decide and I suspect the majority will go with common sense, real life experience and values over social science quackery A discipline dominated by leftwing bias and constructs
Twitter is an echo chamber of left Cinny, it not the real world Look I get it was a bit of ad hominium from Hoskins, but for this subject I do feel age and experience, having kids etc does have bearing on your credibility with this topic God listening to Chlöe was like listening to a 12 year old lecture you on climate change
What's most worrying, said Andrew Thurber, an associate professor of ocean ecology at the University of Oregon, is that nobody saw this year's event coming.
…"We didn't expect it, we didn't predict it," Dr Thurber said. "The models didn't predict this to be a bleaching year. Mo'orea wasn't supposed to bleach and yet all of a sudden something's shifted and it's an incredibly widespread event."
Coral bleaching happens when the sea temperature rises to a point that puts coral under intense stress, causing them to separate from the plant-like organisms that give their colours, as well as their oxygen, waste filtration and up to 90 percent of their energy….
"The only time that it last hit those temperatures was 2016, when it hit for a few days," Dr Thurber said. "It's hit it numerous, numerous times this year."
While Dr Thurber added that it was too early to conclude whether this was a trend being seen at Mo'orea, studies from other parts of the world paint a dire picture for much of the planet – and especially the Pacific's – coral reefs , particularly as the oceans continue to warm rapidly, in some cases up to 40 percent more than previously forecast….
Last year's report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that if global warming was limited to 1.5 degrees celsius – the target set and signed up to by most governments under the Paris Agreement – coral reefs would still decline by between 70 and 90 percent.
And a study published in April by Australian scientists, which focussed on the Great Barrier Reef, found that global warming had hampered its ability to recover from large-scale bleaching in both 2016 and 2017. The researchers said the time between bleachings would shrink as global warming intensified.
"Dead corals don't make babies," said the study's lead author, Professor Terry Hughes from Australia's James Cook University, in a news release."We have noticed more events like that, high temperatures," Mr Siu said. "We've also seen more wave events coming from hurricanes."…
Coral reefs effectively act as the lungs of the ocean, producing more than half of the oxygen that humans breathe and, in turn, regulating both air and water temperatures.
Reefs are also home to about a quarter of all marine life, ranging from microscopic plankton, through to colourful reef fish, sharks and giant whales. This life is critical for communities like Mo'orea and Tahiti, which depend on them for food, protection, recreation and livelihoods.
Not waiting
When an 18-year-old Titouan Bernicot first saw the coral bleaching of 2016, he was surfing with his school friends. Shocked by what he saw, he wasn't going to wait for either the territorial or the French government to act.
"We started to realise the coral reefs give us everything in our lives," he said. The waves they surfed on. The fish they ate when they returned to Mo'orea's white shores. The jobs their parents relied on – tourism, the pearl industry, fishing. "Everything is all connected," he said. Motivated to act, Mr Bernicot and friends formed the Mo'orea Coral Gardeners, a group that set about trying to restore the island's reef. It started with them trying to replant coral cuttings in other parts of the reef.Three years later, Mr Bernicot's movement is bigger than he ever imagined….
Mr Bernicot said this year's bleaching has been disheartening. "This year, everyone is concerned," he said. But if anything, he added, it's given him further drive. His planting effort has intensified, and he's more motivated than ever.
"It's simple. If we do nothing, nothing is going to happen, and the reef will die." "If we do nothing my children will ask me, 'why didn't you do something?'"
Just what we didn't need. A great big retail chain spilling across land in Auckland that we could have grown food on and had social housing on.
But no this monster is going to take business off established retailers large and small and undercut everybody and the profits will go offshore. There are people going to be employed. But there will be businesses closing down – stalemate. And Phil Goff is there smiling. It is supposed to be good. All this buying of land for business to tap into our veins and bleed us to death. But the land speculators will be smiling. They are on a gold mine.
And there will be more biggies. We have IKEA. FGS we are only a country of 4 million people and we have plenty of competition already. We have low wages so that NZrs can't afford what these stores are offering. But with luck they will be able to keep pumping food into themselves so they can have the strength to go out and buy, buy. Wanting the big stores is like star-struck rural innocents who get a supermarket and a mall and think they have made it. It has a superficial charm but the Walmart success for the owners has been a bad dream of small shop owners in the heart of town; it cuts them out.
We are presented with the big figures – gasp everyone.
Costco US $138 billion
750 Warehouse stores
Employs 245,000+ people
94m members worldwide (Best buys to members about $60 annual fee)
When we want to edge up our minimum wage – guess who will be against that. And threatening us with some legal action for loss of profits. Why a raise will be likened to some socialist plot to nationalise the country. Whoa!
That is an interesting thought for these interesting times. It could be that the foreign owners will decide to go green by adopting a no footprint-that-might-contain-money principle when they tidy up their finances for each quarter's market report. The site will be left clean and free from dirty lucre.
When I was posted to Melbourne many moons ago, my partner now wife and I went to Costco located in the Docklands area for a bit of a look. Unless you were prepared to buy in bulk and I mean bulk aka you have one of those big yankie F250 utes or bigger. It was rather pointless signing up for the annual fee as we would've probably bought a enough bog roll and tissues to last a year and as I had a five bedroom Defence House storage wasn't a issue for us two.
We got a better choice and better savings between Coles, Woollies, Aldi, IGA all within a 1-2km radius.
In other words Costco wasn't much chop for us two.
So just as we are trying to introduce the idea of buying less, and reusing and recycling, this crowd will be trying to sell in bulk offering cheap prices based on a single item but you have to buy 10 towels etc.
It catches the psychology of someone poor buying on price, but they can't control themselves from paying $15 when the only wanted one towel if it was $1.50. The shopper feels they got a deal at a bargain price, but don't recognise they're being sucked in and now have 9 towels on their hands that they have to store somewhere or give away or try and sell on themselves.
Agree with you on this. EKF mentioned Aldis a German chain that we use all the time. Key point of difference, smaller stores typically only about 1000m2 and lots of them. About one store per 20,000 people. All the key grocery and fresh food items are there, but a limited selection. Instead of dozen brands of say yoghurt there will be only two. Also they have a good line of in house organics.
The other fascinating thing they do, which is a bit of a hook I will admit, is that the centre aisle of the store is used for a constantly rotating selection of all sorts of things you don't expect, everything literally from power tools, clothing, appliances, workout gear, camping kit and the like. Often good quality and great prices. What they do is buy a line in bulk, then use the empty backloading from the grocery lines to rotate to the next store. It's often only there for a week or two at most so you have to make up your mind or you miss out.
The upshot is very good value for money. Two of us typically shop about once every ten days, and will fill a standard trolley for about A$130 – 150 depending on how many splurge items we got. On the whole I think we spend about 65% less on our groceries than in NZ.
They have the buying power and it's damn hard to compete with them. There will have to be a bond formed between NZ buyers and certified NZ owned stores so that we support each other. We have been conditioned to think globalised and our own enterprises have been sidelined and gone bust. If we want a country where people can earn a living at a job that pays for a person's livelihood which we are told is so important, then people are going to have to put their money where there mouth is. When you think that technology is doing so many out of a job, how do the planners expect to people to manage. There is still an attitude of derision for 'lazy' people by others who hardly know how to do anything for themselves, and never waste time thinking!
If we want a country where people can earn a living at a job that pays for a person's livelihood which we are told is so important, then people are going to have to put their money where there mouth is.
Not going to happen. People will buy best value for money … as they judge value.
Some purchases I make a point of buying local, because like you I do place a value on it, especially where there is added relationship value from sales and support expertise.
Then there is this interesting model with a Japanese chain Muji that has a subtly different business model, also reducing selection but offering product longevity and value.
“This will do.”
It’s an unusual emotion for a retail chain to evoke from its shoppers, but it’s exactly how Japanese powerhouse Muji wants consumers to feel when perusing its vast array of goods.
And it’s working.
The chain opened its first store in Melbourne in 2013 selling a selection of unbranded minimalist clothes, stationery and furniture.
Its strategy lends itself to its sustainable ethos — Muji focuses on recycling and wants to reduce waste in production and packaging.
The clothes are gender neutral and have no logos as part of its no-brand policy.
There is an inherent tension between the efficiency and innovation of globalisation and the desire to retain local identity and diversity. It's plays out at every scale, from villages, towns, cities and nations and largely it's a healthy thing.
not going to happen shark people will vote with their wallets as the way it should be. If the values you highlight are real Costco are rooted, however I suspect you are in a small minority ;
A very interesting article from the people who compile the World Peace Index, saying the CC is going to be a major threat to world peace in the coming years/ decades with the Asia Pacific region the biggest concern and according to the ABC up to a million Aussies will be affected “No shit Sherlock” was my response while the article.
Sugary drinks need the ass taxed out of them all forms of sugar in our food needs to be lowered ma te wa Papatuanuku was not made in a day Jacinda will sort our sugar problem in good time.
Lloyd it hotting up in British politics everyone knows my opinion on brexit and boris it raining here to m8 we need it we are on rain water tank supply.
Our Marae has just been refurbish and new carvings it makes me so proud te whanau have cared and love our Marae it gives Eco Maori a sore face.
Its cool to see you supporting Wahine in hard times the Wahine in the jails need all the help they can get Annah Strettons journey behind bars is the organization Anna has a new book The Raw TRUTH please buy her book and you will be helping these vaunrable Wahine.
Petra I back you in your opinion we need more Maori in management in Oranga tamariki even tho there was a court order for the up lifting of the pepe the glasses that the people who applied and signed the order would not understand the circumstances of the mother and the whanau reo people from a different worlds should not be making choices for the lower class common people you need people who love and understand te tangata to make a fair CALL. I can see we're Ryan is coming from some pepe need to be uplifted for their health and safety. My be a Kau matua needs to sign the papers a well to make the order fairer and un biased.
Eco Maori hopes that they find a cure for the illness of Aotearoa beautiful flightless Parrots the kakapo. I hope doc gets all the resources that they need to fix this problem.
World’s fattest parrot, the endangered kākāpō, could be wiped out by fungal infection
Seven of the birds native to New Zealand have died, with just 142 adults remaining
The world’s fattest parrot is facing an existential threat in the form of a dangerous fungal infection which has already endangered a fifth of its species.
Seven of New Zealand’s native kākāpō have died in recent months after falling victim to the respiratory disease aspergillosis. The latest was on Tuesday, where a 100-day-old chick died at the Auckland Zoo
The nocturnal and flightless parrot ingratiated itself with world after it mated with a zoologist’s head during a BBC documentary. The incident led it to being described as the “party parrot” and finding a life-long fan in Stephen Fry.
Kākāpō, whose males can grow to 4.8 pounds (2.2kg), were once found in large numbers all over New Zealand. However, habitat destruction and pest invasion forced the bird to edge of extinction.
Critically endangered kākāpō – the world's fattest parrot – has record breeding season
The discovery of a previously unknown population of kākāpō in the 1970s led to a resurgence of their numbers. The parrot was then the focus of a conservation effort that saw the bird’s population rise from a low of 51 ageing birds to three times that number.
This year, a team of more than 100 scientists, rangers and volunteers worked to make it the biggest breeding season on record.
Despite that effort, Auckland Zoo’s head of veterinary services Dr James Chatterton said the future of the birds hangs in the balance ka kite ano link below.
I Winston it is cool that the teachers strike has been called off and they have settled.
The statue smith is just spraying wai into the tawhirimate if he was still in power there would have been no extra money for tangata whenua O Aotearoa they were dishing it out in tax cuts.
Its good that there is a new kuakaupapa being built .
I agree with Jacinda we need to comite to mitigating climate change or our Pacific cousins will lose out
Awesome Mrs Mason for her transaction of a diary of Anne Frank's
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On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
The Government Communications Security Bureau denies hosting a foreign spying capability flagged by the watchdog, differentiating it from the system recently criticised. ...
RNZ News A group of academic staff at New Zealand’s largest university have expressed concern at the administration’s move to block a protest encampment that was planned to take place on campus calling for support for the rights of Palestinians. This week, the University of Auckland warned that while it ...
Genterwocky After a hard days marching, Sir Doocey calls in at the Village Tavern For a pint of ale and a pork pie. The grim villagers stare at him. “Do not be travelling on the forest road,” warns a crusty old beak. “And why is that, antique peasant?” Grins Sir ...
Political conferences after a party returns to power are usually a chance for some healthy, even unhealthy backslapping. Yet National Party president Sylvia Wood’s address to its mainland representatives on Saturday hardly contained the unalloyed delight that one might have expected following National’s escape from the wilderness of opposition. Yes, ...
Comment: Almost half the world is voting in national elections this year and artificial intelligence is the elephant in the room. There are genuine fears AI-generated or AI-edited deepfakes will potentially manipulate election outcomes not just in the US and UK, but critically in countries such as India. For that ...
Ahead of the reality franchise’s return to New Zealand, allow us to introduce the eight brides and grooms. Chuck on a veil and tie back your man bun, because it’s time to say “I do” to a new season of Married at First Sight NZ. The reality TV “social experiment” ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Norton, Professor in the Practice of Higher Education Policy, Australian National University Every year on June 1, student debt in Australia is indexed to inflation. In 2023, high inflation pushed the indexation rate to 7.1%, the highest since 1990. This ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Changes in the May 14 budget will cut the student debt of more than three million people, wiping more than $3 billion from what people owe. The government will cap the HELP indexation rate ...
Asia Pacific Report The prosecutor’s office at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has appealed for an end to what it calls intimidation of its staff, saying such threats could constitute an offence against the “administration of justice” by the world’s permanent war crimes court. The Hague-based office of ICC Prosecutor ...
By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk A women’s union in New Caledonia has staged a sit-in protest this week to support senior Kanak indigenous journalist Thérèse Waia, who works for public broadcaster Nouvelle-Calédonie la Première, after a smear attack by critics. The peaceful demonstration was held on ...
New Zealand Food Safety is monitoring overseas recalls of Indian packaged spice products manufactured by MDH and Everest due to concerns over a cancer-causing pesticide. ...
By Stephen Wright and Stefan Armbruster of BenarNews Fiji’s ranking in a global press freedom index has jumped into the top tier of countries with free or mostly free media after its government last year repealed a draconian law that threatened journalists with prison for doing their jobs. Fiji’s improvement ...
We might be in Invercargill but all anyone can talk about is Gore. Specifically, Salford Street. That’s where three-year-old Lachlan Jones lived, south of the centre of town, between the A&P Showgrounds and the Mataura River. Roughly 1.2 km away from the single level home he lived in with his ...
Keen hiker and second-year MSc student Liam Hewson wears two hats when he’s in the great outdoors. “The scientist in me appreciates nature and goes, ‘Oh, there’s that thing and there’s another thing,’ but then the tramper and the outdoorsy person in me thinks, ‘Cool bush.’” Born and bred in ...
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Apart from how pathetic Soimon was in the house yesterday, another significant own goal occurred. I hope people noticed!
Judith, fangs metaphorically dripping blood, a supercilious smile on her face, asked her usual biting question of Phil Twiford. It seems some first home buyers under the KiwiBuild scheme were able to raise the whole cost of a new home – a figure of $650,000 was mentioned.
How could this be possible, Jude demanded? You could see from her attitude she really thought she had Phil by the short and curlies this time. The baying chorus in the background thought so to! The implication being that KiwiBuild is being exploited by the wealthy:
Hon Judith Collins: Does the criteria for KiwiBuild pre-qualification reflect his statement that "this Government is committed to providing the opportunity for home ownership to families who are currently locked out of purchasing their first home."?
Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Yes.
Hon Judith Collins: Is he concerned that official documents show that five of the pre-qualified KiwiBuild buyers had deposits of between $500,000 to $650,000—effectively, meaning they could buy their KiwiBuild house with cash?
Hon PHIL TWYFORD: No. The data the member is referring to is raw data, unchecked. It's very clear that, for a number of the entries, the data had been entered into the online form on the KiwiBuild website by prospective KiwiBuild buyers incorrectly. In fact, Radio New Zealand, who first reported this story, was told by the KiwiBuild unit that a number of the examples where people had entered what seemed to be a large deposit were cases where, in fact, people had assumed they were supposed to enter the total budget for the house. So, for the purposes that the member is trying to use it, the data is quite unreliable.
Egg (to mix a metaphor) on Jude’s face! She only managed a couple of lame follow-up questions before she shut up. Perhaps Jude’s source within KiwiBuild had set her up?
This opposition really is a total shambles!
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/113382143/kiwibuild-applicants-earning-just-11000-able-to-raise-650000
Wonder if they ever issue a correction?
Oh dear simon has done it again…..shameful interview on RNZ this morning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=265&v=sbTzDVlzTmU
I think I know what the issue is….. he doesn't listen.
A man with boy’s ears 😉
What he does is relentlessly and robotically repeats bumper sticker slogans that they've clearly got a good reaction for from focus groups.
Unfortunately, he has zero charisma and zero charm and zero gravitas so it just comes across as mindless, insincere and slightly hysterical.
In particular, a leader have to have charisma, and Simon just doesn't.
What Helen Clark lacked in charisma she more than made up for with competence and political nous. Bridges is lacking (and leaking!) in every department.
Well that's good in the circumstances isn't it Sanctuary?
Unfortunately, he has zero charisma and zero charm and zero gravitas so it just comes across as mindless, insincere and slightly hysterical.
You make it sound like something undesirable. I thought you were for the Left. If so you don't need to criticise the Right for not being up to much in your opinion. Let them wallow and encourage the Left to do the best they can with the constraints they have.
As Margaret Thorn said in the title of her book – her memoirs, ‘Stick out, keep left’, published posthumously in 1997.
https://www.artybees.co.nz/thorn-margaret/stick-out-keep-left-autobiography-margaret-thorn
I know this will be controversial and will probably reflect poorly on me, but I just can't help but feeling a little sorry for him…there I said it.
And yes of course I know and understand that his political ideology is wrong in the head, and hurts the most vulnerable in our society, that his ideology destroys workers rights and the planet etc and so on…actually now that I have typed this out..fuck him, hope it hurts, maybe it will teach him a lesson in humility, but I doubt it.
I know this will be controversial and will probably reflect poorly on me, but I just can't help but feeling a little sorry for him…there I said it.
He reminds me of …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NUjWiRp-vc
and…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzA3Q1HS0I0
Theoretically hilarious, but I could never see the funny side. Kinda pathetic.
Empathy and compassion aren't just for our friends
good for you Adrian!
I'm hearing you and at a guess you feel that way because you are a caring person and that's nothing to feel bad about, instead having caring feels is something to be proud of.
Personally, I don't get angry re simon like I did with john key, instead I end up erupting into gales of laughter and disbelief that his party still backs him.
This week especially he seems to have completely lost his mojo (if he ever had any) question time yesterday was a shocker… I wonder what today will bring.
I hope everyone has taken the time to watch Melanie Reid's report on Oranga Tamariki's attempt to forcibly remove a newborn baby from his mother.
If these 'social workers' are the pick of the Hawke's Bay crop then no fucking wonder there has been little improvement in 'outcomes' for struggling families being 'supported by Oranga Tamariki.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/113395638/new-zealands-own-stolen-generation-the-babies-taken-by-oranga-tamariki
https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018699080/nz-s-own-stolen-generation
Has anyone heard a peep out of Anne Tolley about it all?
Has anyone heard a peep out of Anne Tolley about it all?
I wouldn't expect to, would you?
Where's Sepuloni? Off pretending she gives a damn about disability issues…https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/minister-disability-issues-visit-united-nations-and-canada
And Martin….denies and denies….https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/shows/2019/05/oranga-tamariki-isn-t-snatching-babies-children-s-minister-tracey-martin.html
To be honest, I began watching this program with my cynical hat in place…surely this baby is at extreme risk of harm?
There was risk…but not from the young mother…she was being punished for the failings of her family….a situation I am all too familiar with when it comes to CYFs. My last encounter of this nature was over ten years ago…and nothing has changed.
Arrogant, power crazed and incredibly stupid social workers employed by an organsiation that clearly couldn't coordinate a bonk in a brothel much less uplifting a baby from a maternity unit.
And now it appears Oranga Tamariki are suing Newsroom…
Our closest friend here in Australia is a social worker. We know her very well. She is the exact opposite of 'arrogant, power crazed and stupid'. She tells us often of the awful stress of a job where you never know when something terrible is going to go wrong … and while you had no control over it, you will get the blame.
Oranga Tamariki is however tasked with just one job, protecting children. It is not there to fix families or solve social ills. It cannot deal with poverty, drugs, mental health, violence or abuse … that is the role of other agencies. Inevitably if a child if removed the mother will be aggrieved; yet no-one asks if the child was not removed and is then harmed what will the mother feel then? There can be no winners in this sad calculus.
There is every reason to demand excellence and high professional standards from social workers, who clearly have a difficult job to do. If the unit in Hawkes Bay is struggling a review and increased support is needed. If their managers are burned out and cynical, they need to be reassigned to other roles less critical.
Oranga Tamariki is however tasked with just one job, protecting children. It is not there to fix families or solve social ills.
Err… Whatever the reason, we focus first and foremost on the needs of the child or young person. We work together with families and whānau to resolve any issues, and ensure whānau get the help and support they might need to provide a safe, stable and loving home.
https://www.orangatamariki.govt.nz/how-we-get-involved/overview/
Did you actually watch the video RL?
I did. https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2019/06/12/623624/the-midwife-fighting-for-her-patients-babies
(I am trying to provide excerpts that will convey just wrong those social workers were to treat this young family like criminals.)
Te Huia says whānau believed they were the right people to care for their own and were doing all they could to address and comply with OT’s concerns and expectations
Aside from both grandmothers leaving troubled and violent home lives, the young mother had attended antenatal courses and undertaken a family violence course. A care plan had been created which planned for the young mother and her baby to stay in a whare which supports young Māori mothers for the first six months where she would have around-the-clock care and a multi-disciplinary care team had been initiated around addressing the family’s needs.
Fair enough I overstated the position, but ultimately case workers will be held responsible for the child's welfare and this will always be their first priority.
Clearly it shouldn't be their only priority, helping families to the extent possible and keeping children safe with their whanau is obviously the desirable outcome. But it seems that all too often that's a gamble OT staff are not willing to take. Maybe that does come back to a blame oriented internal culture as I suggested above.
But it seems that all too often that's a gamble OT staff are not willing to take.
A cursory peruse of articles about children dying at the hands of whanau will disprove that statement. In many, many cases CYFs were involved and failed to keep the children safe. In at least one case they very probably caused the abuser to kill the children.
Yes…some kids need uplifting now…don't piss around…
Others, like the whanau above, had been making real efforts with coordinated help and those numpties rode rough shod over everyone.
And what of the partner of the woman involved?
RL There has been a lot of talk about agencies working together.
But if they are always treating crises and making them also at times, they probably can't set the wheels in motion to co-ordinate with other agencies. They need to be working with a partner in another agency perhaps who they can work well with and immediately work out best way to handle cases for effectiveness.
Rosemary M Here is a John Mortimer story – Rumpole and the Children of the Devil. I haven't watched it myself yet but it is based on a written story with the same name. I thought after your comments about Oranga Tamariki that you would like his window onto what he refers to ironically in the story as 'the caring profession'.
First he explains the background to the story – but his words are voiced by a woman – probably something to do with legal or technological ties.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jilyC-KUYHE
How would you avoid punishing her for the failings of her family?
Gabby. It just struck me that while CYFs, Oranga Tamariki (or whatever they are called today) demand that parents make significant changes in their lives in order to retain custody of their children, they themselves appear wholly incapable as a government agency of making the kinds of changes required to perform their role without causing further trauma.
Someone needs to remind them, again, that a mere name change is not good enough.
A fundamental culture change is needed…which is what they should be supporting that young mother to achieve.
Words of wisdom and experience that sounds Rosemary. It is no wonder that you get a bit testy FTTT.
First change I would make to give her and her two children a chance..try and make the average NZ accept that every one needs a roof over their head. Not a car roof, not a temporary shelter roof, not a kiwibuild (trickle down housing policy) but an actual place to call home to raise their children.
Last night around 400 children in the Hawkes Bay alone, slept in motels as a direct result of homelessness and unaffordable housing.
To say nothing of the hundreds who will have slept in overcrowded, possibly dysfunctional, possibly violent households..because they simply have no options.
Homelessness, and equally the constant grinding fear of homelessness, is basicaly the number one punishment our society is willing to inflict upon thousands of families and individuals..despite that fact it pretty much guarantees poor outcomes.
Wrap around services and 'plans' are all very well for this young woman, her babies and her partner…but even the best parent's in the world, are living on the edge of disaster if they are unable to settle in a home.
Years ago we used to foster kids from SIPS, after dealing with their relentless bullshit for a couple of years I had a big angry spin out and after a lots of calls managed to talk to someone well up the food chain. He asked me, "what is the one thing we can do to help make this work better for you and the children you foster", I said I want a flashing signal that flashes every time someone from your organization opens any of our files that says "Don't fuck these people around!", they couldn't have followed my very precise instructions because they kept doing exactly what I asked them not to do.
Sounds like nothing has changed.
After caring for a baby in very similar circumstances to Reid's article and finding ourselves the only people on the stage batting for the young mum (to the point of putting in a complaint to the Children's Commission about CYF's handling of the case) we found ourselves on their shit list.
Despite either myself or my partner phoning the CYFs office every day for nearly two months to find out when the Care Plan for this infant was going to arrive we were chastised for 'not communicating' after we complained to the Commission.
We had spoken to a couple who had fostered some thirty years prior to us, and they were saying exactly the same things.
SSDD.
Oh CYF's that's right must have blocked that out.
I was told at the outset by friends who knew what they were talking about, that while our intentions were good and right, we were like babes in the woods as far as CYF's were concerned, and it would probably end badly, which it didn't but it was a very unsatisfactory experience to say the least.
That being said I don't regret for minute the decision to get involved, the kids who came through got to exist in a pretty happy, somewhat functional and loving home for a while, and that was not nothing for some of them.
That being said I don't regret for minute the decision to get involved, the kids who came through got to exist in a pretty happy, somewhat functional and loving home for a while, and that was not nothing for some of them.
We signed up for emergency and respite care so over 60 children got to have that same experience. There were none who did not need to be in care for at least a short time while the grown ups were assisted by Child, Youth and Family to get their shit sorted.
Trouble is, while we did our bit and kept the kids safe and happyish…CYFs often did sfa to sort out the family.
True that, we had one kid with us for quite a while (over 12 months) and he came out of CYF care while with us, even though this young man had been in their care in one form or another since he was a baby, they had not set up even one thing to help prepare him for his entry in to the wide world, they were in a word…useless.
Its all very well and good to carry on about 'uplifting', but what help are these young parents going to get in future?
Or are they going to be sent home with a few pamphlets and a list of 0800 numbers and expected to flounder around on their own?
Its all very well and good to carry on about 'uplifting', but what help are these young parents going to get in future?
Good point. And I don't think there was anyone in NZ (other than Tariana) who was cheering on the Whanau Ora concept louder than myself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wh%C4%81nau_Ora
Sadly, and despite Tariana throwing family carers under the bus at the 2013 Budget in return for an extra 1.2 billion bucks towards Maori initiatives including WO…it seems to have come to sfa.
Hawkes Bay has horrendous stats for social dysfunction and you'd think with an active and engaged local iwi there would have been strides made…
BUT…in this particular case there were interventions being made and support structures in place which were ignored and dismissed by the OT social workers.
What are they trying to hide – nice the high charging lawyers are involved – that will help the situation get worse.
marty mars…I have this theory. The un- announced uplifting of Maori babies in certain areas is obviously a problem. The deep involvement and activism from these Maori midwives (who seem to be seriously on to it) and their lawyer has led to them forming a plan to gain as much media publicity as possible…because that's simply how the system works.
They had Reid primed and ready to go on speed dial should another uplift be imminent.
Then they just sat back with the cameras rolling (so to speak) and let those Oranga Tamariki social workers damn themselves and the organisation they work for.
Seems like the OT case against Newsroom smacks of another Lashlie…
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=940577
Whistleblower Celia Lashlie deserved to be sacked by the Special Education Service last year, her former boss, chief executive Peter Cowley, told MPs yesterday.
An uproar followed Ms Lashlie's dismissal after she spoke out about at-risk children by describing a blond, angelic five-year-old boy from Nelson who was headed for prison. The service said that she had breached client confidentiality. But a month later chairman Graham Lovelock had to resign when an inquiry found she had been unfairly treated.
I just watched the show – so bad. With 3 Māori babies a week being taken then they may have had a few choices but this process for this whānau and young mother seems so shocking.
This isn't going to be able to happen like this anymore – this is going to change.
I just watched the show
You have to watch it to get the full impact. If nothing else methinks an award is in the future for Newsroom. Good work.
I was aware of this when it happened but watching really drives how bad the whole thing is. I had to watch even though I didn't want to. It was horrible.
Fake News?
You aint seen nothing yet.
https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-clones-voice-speech-patterns
What 1863? Sure it's not 1963? Is that our curse that we can look and imagine so far into the future, and not make enough headway so that society takes note and the leaders consider that thinking as prescient and important and act in accordance with it. Oh for dreams like Back to the Future. The saddest two words in the English language – If only! Have we not looked for persons of a truly philosophic mind when we choose our leaders? Have we any now? And what classification of the minds of our civil servants – are they just basically practical and commonsense people wanting to meet targets so they can get their pay and hopefully, promotion?
Edit.
Trundling down Onewa Rd this morning – able to use the T3 so not too bad, In the non-T3 lane, the looks on people's faces! Boredom, despair, and outright depression. How did this pointless, life-sapping stupidity come about?
And the signs from "tiny Dan the economist man" Bidois calling for AT to 'fix' Onewa Rd. No Dan – what we need to fix is the insane need for everyone to be on the road at the same time. It's clear that just about everyone works way too much. We need a much shorter working week and public transport free at the point of use. The realm of freedom begins where the realm of necessity ends.
“we need a much shorter working eeek” huh?
how short would you life it?
What wage will you have to pay people per hour to be able to live off the shortened week?
how much more are you willing to pay for goods now NZ has this “much shorter week”?
a lot of roles need to be covered so we will need more people in jobs? Where are we going to get them from?
There are a multitude of ways that a "four day week" can be applied other than the one most recently reported on as a success incl details of how accommodation was made for those who it did or did not suit.
It is all about thinking on your feet, productivity and outcomes and will be a vital part of "the future of work".
Most families have couples working a four day week planned to accommodate two days off immediately reduces the need for full-time or before and after childcare and children farmed out to that less. It can also be a five day but lesser hour day that also caters to younger children's need for adult care and the better productivity achieved in the Perpetual Guardian trial. Besides my husband's business I worked in the private sector as an employee eventually part-time by my choice but completed as many, and some times more, tasks in my 24 hours than others who just occupied their seats often chatting/fiddling for their eight hour day pay.
Finally in regard to some physically active occupations as per my husband's business of laying infrastructure once a contract was won and agreed it almost always had a fairly clear timeline. With some urging and encouragement he recognised that one option was four ten hour days that meant that travel and loading and unloading gear plus set-up was immediately effectively not required for the fifth day that was once worked.
Another aspect that worked had similar set-up savings and that was for example a good run and good planning often meant what may have been estimated as an approx eight week job may often be completed in seven or so weeks. Some businesses will have staff doing meaningless "maintenance" yes that must be done and the time is ideal but punitively requiring staff to turn up for hours for the rest of a week before the next job begins is pointless.
It also meant good will extended to staff work five days when necessary and have the option to accrue "lieu" days – eventually it became a bit of a tradition to have a few of those built up so around Easter no\ jobs were set down to start, all jobs were set to be completed and around that time the lieu days were added to the Easter break for a bit of a build up into winter.
Thinking as you seem to do that the benefits are not there and people need to work and functional in a one size fits all, rigid and inflexible work regime is of no use to anything particularly the productivity improvements NZ needs.
The "right" are quite bereft of ideas aren't they? National haven't had one in a long while.
Unbelievably the relentless Russia conspiracy theorist and general nutter Rachel Maddow will moderate first Democratic debates. They could most probably have had more balance if it was hosted by someone from Fox…the clip from below is from 2018, and she still hasn't stopped going on and on and on and on and on and on…..
God Bless John Stewart.
George Orwell's doublespeak in real time, right in front of our eyes….although this sort of thing coming straight from the hated Whitehouse will help Corbyn not hurt him IMO.
Pompeo pledges not to wait for Britain’s elections to ‘push back’ against Corbyn and anti-Semitism
"Secretary of State Mike Pompeo weighed in on British politics during a closed-door meeting with Jewish leaders, saying he would not wait for Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn to become prime minister of Britain to “push back” against him or any future actions he might take against Britain’s Jews."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pompeo-pledges-not-to-wait-for-britains-elections-to-push-back-against-corbyn-and-anti-semitism/2019/06/07/dfeaa180-9c27-4495-9322-3d16b7d1541a_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a08adb8c0f44
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/113409891/can-new-zealands-superannuation-age-remain-at-65
Dianne Crossman, starts her drum beat again to raise the age, despite that such a move will plunge thousands of people into hardship. Especially those who have spent most of their lives in insecure jobs with very low incomes, or on benefits due to medical conditions. The thought of having to wait 2 more years to get NZ Super will break a lot of people. Not that she gives a shit.
Personally I think the age should be dropped back to 60, as I see there are a lot of 60-65 year olds in much hardship, thrown under the bus by their wealthy property owning peers who voted for lower taxes and benefit cuts.
Suggesting raising the age for the pension (superannuation) is a case of bias based on 'my' experience and knowledge trumping any other considerations. I think from my knowledge and experience that a lot of our policy makers, leaders and 'thinkers' come at their task with their minds clear and untramelled by any conflict or confusion of differing opinion and information.
She rightly points out that there are large numbers of older people who are very fit and who are continuing to work and earn past 65. She also points out that people are living longer, (and that can mean that they are receiving the pension for old age for a third of their adult lives).
But simply looking at the cost of the pension to those people, and arbitrarily shifting the threshold age up is a 'commonsense' response to the problem. Having to hunt for jobs when your abilities are not in demand is often hard and soul-breaking up to 65, so no extension of age is going to make the task easier and would be a nasty blow to people under stress of poverty. Also with the decreasing lack of full-time jobs that pay for all living costs in New Zealand, people over 65 filling some that would have been available to younger people, merely pushes the welfare cost down to a younger age. For someone who has a senior well-paying job, to work on for years prevents others on the ladder from rising and building their own savings for retirement, and their seniority and experience is not then fully realised and utilised by their employer.
This appears to be the case with Outgoing Retirement Commissioner Diane Maxwell. (Diana Crossan was Retirement Commissioner for ten years and was replaced by Diane Maxwell.) She is someone who has worked extremely hard in England, owned an advertising business, then in finance consultancy, retail banking and became Regulator of the Financial Markets Authority.
Diane Maxwell has been outspoken about the need to increase the pension age from 65….
Maori and Pacific people also currently have lower life expectancies but Maxwell said that was something to fix outside pension settings. "My partner is Samoan. My son is half-Samoan. I wouldn't want to raise him saying you get super earlier because you're Samoan – what does that say to him? It tells him it's a done deal. I don't think that's right."
Despite:
Researchers Michael Littlewood and Michael Chamberlain have said there is no need for panic.
In their response to Maxwell's 2016 review, they said: "We know that the population aged 65-plus will about double over coming decades and that the costs of healthcare and New Zealand Super will increase substantially if current settings remain. These two major government programmes will be the most directly affected by the ageing population. However, we also know that New Zealand's economy will grow and, barring catastrophes, we should as a country be able to afford more than we currently pay for the age-related programmes…
Forty-four per cent of people aged 65 to 69 are still working and that is expected to increase in future. Others continue even longer. Some of them are even serving as the country's deputy prime minister…
Maxwell said the country had passed a tipping point where most people at 65 were healthy, fit and active and did not see themselves as pensioners…
"If you think about the original intention of super in 1898 back then we weren't expected to make it much past that. Then it went to 60 then back to 65 but where we've got to now, our life expectancy is much longer. Women should expect to get to mid or late 80s, and men mid 80s, broadly. You used to get super for five years, then 10 and now 20 – soon it'll be 30. I'm not sure how we can fund people getting super for 30 years or more."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/113409891/can-new-zealands-superannuation-age-remain-at-65
Also see 'Diane Maxwell – PressReader'
And: Profile: Diane Maxwell 2015 https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11504524
Then there is the need to examine our financial system. There are ways that government could manage the system of support better. Many of our wealthy percentage now live better than kings and queens of past centuries. But they should not necessarily be cut off from the pension scheme, as they form a small percentage in the nation. There are people who apply their minds to problems within society who can be asked to form working groups and work with academics from the age group who know the problems. They would co-operate and interact through a blog such as this. Suggestions leading to pilot schemes for testing would be more acceptable if they came from the older age group themselves. Everyone doing some volunteer part-time work that utilised their past skills, or new ones that they would like to train for, which would be extra to tasks already employing people as agreed by government, would result in the country running more smoothly and better understanding between age and social classes. And there would be a drop in cost for welfare in other areas. This would not be necessarily pleasing to the wealthy class however, who seem to feel obliged to keep impacting on opportunities for betterment of the strugglers.
An understanding that an increase in cost of pensions does not necessarily mean ruin for the country is also necessary. This requires an understanding of how money is a created asset of will, and the various factors governing its effectiveness in keeping a nation thriving, and in maintaining its value for trading exchanges. Economists have wandered off onto paths that are not appropriate to follow further into our fast-changing future. But new approaches must be formed by others outside the tight measures of historic systems which are grimly held onto by the relative few who want to hold their ephemeral assets, and see their physical assets maintain value.
As someone who argued that super should not be paid to those still working way back in 1983 (a corrrespondence with Anne Hercus, who later brought in surtax), I do support paying super rate benefits to those not working after the age of 60 (unable to work or find work) and of course the income supplement for power to those on super and or benefits.
This is important as the cost of paying super to those working is limiting revenue for public education, health and housing (which could be significanly higher and government still be within 30% GDP).
The cost of paying super to those still working is over $3B pa and is rising fast – will be $5Bpa by the end of the decade.
The grossly under- reported Kim Dotcom case is a litmus test for democracy in New Zealand
Given the public interest in this and its importance as a litmus test for New Zealand's judicial system there is shamefully little coverage of this in the New Zealand media.
Kim's fate is as important as Julian Assange's. If the New Zealand government sends Kim to a dungeon in the United States it will mark the end of democracy in this country – as if we haven't already seen which way things are going
I had to search on Google for this. I check the RNZ site regularly.
http://robinwestenra.blogspot.com/
The founder of file-sharing service Megaupload, Kim Dotcom, has entered the final appeal battle to try and challenge his extradition to the US, where he faces decades behind bars for copyright infringement charges.
The appeal hearings kicked off in New Zealand's Supreme Court on Monday. If the appeal fails, it will be up to the country's interior minister to decide whether to actually greenlight the extradition.
Dotcom has resided in New Zealand since 2010 and the US case against the Megaupload founder has resulted in a lengthy extradition battle. While it was greenlighted in 2015, it has been repeatedly appealed in various courts since then, ultimately getting to the top judiciary.
The founder of file-sharing service Megaupload, Kim Dotcom, has entered the final appeal battle to try and challenge his extradition to the US, where he faces decades behind bars for copyright infringement charges.
The appeal hearings kicked off in New Zealand's Supreme Court on Monday. If the appeal fails, it will be up to the country's interior minister to decide whether to actually greenlight the extradition.
Dotcom himself has repeatedly stated that the whole case is an attempt by the US government to further stomp on “web freedom” and if he's prosecuted, any internet provider can be held liable for the “misuse” of their services by the users.
His legal team maintains that the file-sharing service platform itself cannot be blamed for any copyright infringement by the end users. Supporters of the internet entrepreneur share a similar opinion, arguing that it will set a very dangerous precedent – for internet-based businesses.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48582958
New Zealand's Court of Appeal has just ordered the NZ govt(which will be down to the justice minister,Little) to reconsider the Amy Adams granted extradition of a Korean accused of the murder of a sex worker in China.
This is because apparently we can't just accept China's assurances that the suspect, if found guilty will not be executed , or tortured
Can we accept any US assurances that Dotcom will be treated fairly and in line with human rights?
Dotcom's "crime" is way below the charge of murder
I'll be watching Little on this one
This is likely to end up in Andrew Little's lap, and will be a test of independence for this government
Speaking of dungeons..given todays announcement of the US formally and fully requesting Assanges extradition..lets revisit and give a massive eye roll at the Guardians wording last month re;America beginning formally requesting extradition…
"Declined a chance"
Chance of a life time folks..and he's 'declined'.
Good grief.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-justice-assange/us-formally-asks-uk-to-extradite-wikileaks-assange-idUSKCN1TC24R
Slightly off topic; more aligned with Julian Assange's case than Dot Com's, but this demonstrates also, how hopelessly useless NZ media is compared to……well
Russia
Russia's three top newspapers –
@Vedomosti,@ru_rbc, and@kommersant – are running identical front pages tomorrow in solidarity with@meduzaproject reporter Ivan Golunov, who is facing up to 20 years in prison in apparent retaliation for his work.https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1137821497387601921
All the charges have been dropped and some police under investigation
Yep, there is a real diversity of voice in print news over there
Makes us look pathetic
I guess it's diverse if Alexei Gromov says it's diverse.
It is widely known that major Russian media outlets — especially television — are controlled by the government. But who actually manages the Kremlin’s grip? This is the story of Alexey Gromov, a former diplomat who has gained great influence and power as Vladimir Putin’s media puppetmaster.
In the spring of 2017, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in about 100 Russian cities to protest political corruption and other problems in national government.
Western media and Russian Internet news outlets published stories about the marches, many focusing on the police who brutally dispersed the crowds and arrested nearly 2,000 protesters. But Russian viewers of the country’s television channels saw little of this. For most of them, the May 26 protests never happened at all.
Described as an unassuming man whose passions include collecting antique coins, Gromov is nonetheless a key manager of the Putin government’s control over what gets said — or not — in Russia’s major print and broadcast media. He is also a co-creator of RT, the international propaganda network formerly known as Russia Today.
https://www.proekt.media/portrait/alexey-gromov-eng
https://www.occrp.org/en/investigations/the-man-behind-the-kremlins-control-of-the-russian-media
Its always been well known that the print media in Russia is way more diverse, unlike our own, and the TV is more aligned to govt viewpoints.Nothing new here
Likely more partisan than diverse.
It seems unlikely those who ordered Mr Golunov’s prosecution could have guessed his arrest would prove so controversial and end with disgrace and suspensions. The reporter is not well known beyond liberal circles. And the Russian journalistic community is hardly known for acts of solidarity. But the journalist’s plight provoked an unprecedented multi-level response that surprised almost everyone watching.
Within hours of his detention making the news, hundreds of journalists were picketing the headquarters of Moscow police. Even stars of state propaganda offered messages of support. On Monday, Russia’s leading broadsheets led with the same front page in support of Mr Golunov. Again, this was a historical first and the entire print-run was snapped up before lunchtime.
“I hope with this story something has changed in this profession,” said Ms Timchenko. “I hope that the next time we are offended, attacked or worse, we will respond as one.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ivan-golunov-released-house-arrest-police-drugs-charge-journalist-a8953801.html
"Makes us look pathetic"
Indeed it does, though it isn't 'us', its mainstream New Zealand media, print, digital, radio and TV.
It must be said though there are some fantastic NZ journalists: Max Rushbroke, David Slack, Chris Trotter, Mihingarangi Forbes, Kirsty Johnstone, Bryan Bruce.
If the Supreme Court finds the KDC should be extradited, I am pretty sure that is what will happen.
All KDC's points are being fully argued in the Supreme Court, probably more fully than any other litigant in New Zealand history.
He either wins or loses in the Supreme Court. More than any other case, a political decision should not come into it.
If he loses, then he should be extradited. If he wins, then he stays.
More than any other case, a political decision should not come into it.
Bit late for that. The circumstances of the dodgy assault on his home scream "political decision," so one more here or there doesn't make much difference.
We will never give up thinks Simon.
Today in the House:
2. Hon SIMON BRIDGES to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her Government’s statements and actions in relation to the alleged unauthorised access of Budget 2019 material?
4.Hon AMY ADAMS to the Minister of Finance: Does he accept that clause 3.27 of the Cabinet Manual states he is individually accountable for Treasury’s actions in relation to the early release of Budget 2019 information, and at what specific time did Treasury first receive advice from the GCSB relating to the use of the term “hack”?
Bridges really is a glutton for punishment. IMO he is just making himself look like a fool acting like a broken record. LOL
The question by Amy Adams is of more interest IMO, because she appears to be trying to get around Trevor Mallard's Speaker ruling/warning yesterday in relation to her line of questioning of Robertson under Question 4. Mallard referred her to a ruling some years ago (2012) by Speaker Smith that it is not in the public interest to comment while an independent inquiry is underway.
As I mentioned in a reply I made earlier this morning @ 4.2.2,1. to one by mickysavage under Daily Review 11 June, the transcript of yesterday's Questions 1 and 2 by Bridges are worth reading carefully for the timeline and their exact wording – along with that of Question 4 where Adams (as a trained lawyer) tried to 'lead' Robertson in his answers to her questions but failed thanks to Mallard's preparation/anticipation of the tactic she used and Robertson's careful replies.
Here is the link to the transcript again for all yesterday's questions.
https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/combined/HansDeb_20190611_20190611_04
The Timeline published on Scoop:
David Parker answered questions on behalf of minister responsible for the GCSB Andrew Little, giving a clear timeline of the events surrounding Hack-gate.
• 8:02pm – Treasury issued its press release advising there had been a deliberate and systemic hack and it had referred this to police
• 8:43pm – Mr Little's office first spoke to the GCSB
• 9:43pm – Mr Little spoke to the GCSB
• 9:52 pm – Mr Little contacted the prime minister's office
• 10:25pm – Mr Little contacted Finance Minister Grant Robertson via text message
(Wonder why the last Government was not put under the same intense scrutiny?)
Thanks, That seems to be a shortened version of the long timeline published in Derek Cheng's non-paywalled article in The Herald this morning.
Link –
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12239460
[Note – I don’t like giving clickbaits to the Herald, but with this new comments system I seem unable to copy and paste into comments which is a real bore. The tool bar says that my browser doesn't enable pasting using the two paste icons in the tool bar and to use Control + Shift + V which does not work and just gives a row of vvvvvvvvvvvs ]
Agree re the last govt not having been subjected to the same level of scrutiny, but I really think that the “Bridges’ approach” is going to backfire on National in the longer term – and already is seen by many as a Wellington Beltway bore.
Test of using the Blockquote facility to paste. ummmm ………
The Paste as plain text (Ctrl + Shift + V) icon doesn’t work for me either and I use Ctrl + V, i.e. without Shift.
This is when using Microsoft Edge.
Well David Carsehole was very 'good' at putting an end to inconvenient questions.
4.Hon AMY ADAMS to the Minister of Finance: Does he accept that clause 3.27 of the Cabinet Manual states he is individually accountable for Treasury’s actions in relation to the early release of Budget 2019 information, and at what specific time did Treasury first receive advice from the GCSB relating to the use of the term “hack”?
Treasury did not release the information early, it was obtained by the National Party using unauthorised access to confidential government information.
The time given is …. and they were also advised to take the matter of the National Party's unauthorised access to Treasury’s confidential information to the police.
It's my view that Bridges belatedly realised he committed a crime and is frantically diverting all over the shop in an attempt to set the agenda. A conviction would not just sink his political career, but call into question any future legal one as well.
And I know I'd never employ a lawyer who'd been so reckless as to leak the Budget and then crow about it after.
No wonder he cannot let it go; it's keeping him awake at night.
I think I may have accidentally stumbled on what was meant by a government that is 'transformational'. But it still doesn't explain the lack of "reinvention of government' or the lack of adequate "interaction with its citizens' (or various other things like being open and kind, or even some of the dithering).
I had been interrupted while doing a g-g-g-google on Oranga Tamariki (anxious to see why not much has changed, or is transformational), and government, then later (using the same unfulfilled g-g-g-google window) typing 'transformational'. Low and behold:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformational_Government
It possibly does explain things like demographic EXCEL spreadsheets and generic public servant managers entirely out of their depth though, and even deference to those 'officials' considered to be the experts. Maybe I should see 'Gabs' in a different light, and even why some of those 'progressive generic manager' types thought the use of T&C would be OK at the parliamentary corral. (Codes of Conduct, Purchase Agreements and Performance Appraisals ALL aside)
Maybe some of the failings are just down to 'The Computer Says NO'
In a former life as a Systems Programmer many years past, I've never forgotten what a couple of my managers said to me: One being one of those 10 pound Poms and expert in various network protocols, the other responsible for being the author of an entire operating system that supported our banking system for years.
"People should drive technology" and conversely "technology should not drive people".
By which they meant that people were the starting point, rather than here's a piece of technology, so now let's see what it can do for us.
Which is why we spent a lot of time determining what it was that 'people' – i.e. human beings' requirements were as the staring point, and if need be, developing and even manufacturing hardware to effect things like remote switching mechanisms, and 99.9% availability, etc. etc. etc.
I'm thinking that the day machinery is able to feel emotion, to empathise rather than sympathise and structure some templated version of a response, and the day it isn't versed in spin and obfuscation – unable to get its registers and storage knickers in a twist, is the day I'll renew my interest in things IT (as opposed to ICT). Probably also the day those generic managers will be out of business although really, they should be already ("ultimately, going forward")
is getting the right answer even if you weren’t planning it a good thing ?
many here have commented on the wrong direction the govt is heading re Kiwibuild (welfare for the middle class) instead of placing all the efforts into HNZ and those in need. Somehow we have in the short term got it right imo
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/113402379/while-kiwibuild-falters-state-house-build-rockets-ahead-with-ninefold-increase-over-three-years
If the government concentrated on one over the other, the house build programme would not carry widespread support – a recent poll showed people still support KiwiBuild.
KiwiBuild is a way to boost supply to constrain upward rents that is affordable – given the 30% government to GDP (and 20% debt target between now and 2022 this is important) limitation
PS It's inevitable sales will extend to those going from one bedroom flats and apartments to family homes.
It would be nice to see a bit more made of this.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/first-up/audio/2018699171/milford-track-huts-booked-out-in-minutes-for-summer
The site went live at 9:30am on Tuesday and within minutes bookings for the 70 beds in huts along the track were full for December and January….
There has also been a rise in the number of New Zealand residents booking to walk the tracks.
DoC says the number of Kiwis booking has risen since last year and credits it to a "different pricing trial in place on four of the Great Walks". The Milford, Kepler, Routeburn and Abel Tasman Coast Tracks all have a special price for International visitors which is up to double the fees New Zealand residents will pay….
Further bookings for the Great Walk tracks are being released this week and are expected to be popular, Mr Taylor says, 'If it's anything like previous seasons you'll need to be in quick." Bookings for the tracks will come out on the following days:
Routeburn Track & Paparoa Track
Wednesday 12th June 2019, 9.30am
Abel Tasman Coast Track, Tongariro Northern Circuit & Kepler Track
Thursday 13th June 2019, 9.30am
Rakiura Track, Whanganui Journey & Lake Waikaremoana Track
Friday 14th June, 9.30am
(So get in Kiwis that can afford the cost to get in and enjoy. A great chance to enjoy your own scenic splendour while you can. Also it would be good if Kiwis had first dibs in the main holidays and in school holidays.) International visitors can have their opportunities outside our holidays- seems fair – we don't have that many.
I think we need more saints days and memorial days for past great luminaries!)
…it would be good if Kiwis had first dibs in the main holidays and in school holidays.
That is an excellent idea. You should email DOC and suggest it. It could become an actual thing….Kiwi families doing the Great Walks.
Poots and his kleptocrat mates losing their grip?
https://twitter.com/AlexNicest/status/1138458186602680320
This statement gives a bit more information
https://twitter.com/olliecarroll/status/1138452417262100481
According to Wikipedia
Vladimir Alexandrovich Kolokoltsev is a Russian politician and policeman who was the Moscow Police Commissioner from 2009 to 2012. He has been serving as Russian Minister of Internal Affairs from 21 May 2012.
Pooty might be eyeing up his dacha.
Had a long meeting this morning with a couple of locals who carry some weight, left feeling rather uplifted as we are going to work together to help our community, especially the kids at the high school with mental health and bullying. Yay!!!!
Double yay Cinny. What methods do you propose to use. Is there a helpful therapeutic tool that is available?
In the past there have been various parent evenings or off campus talks, but those who attend aren't the people that necessarily need the help the most.
We want to get some prominent speakers to come and address the whole school, captive audience and all that. So are now taking steps to make it happen.
Found out the principal thinks that there is a mandate with the ministry of ed preventing such speakers coming to talk. So I rang the ministry of ed who said there is no such mandate. Made me wonder if there was such a mandate with the prior government. Turns out it's up to the BOT if they want it to happen, rather than the principal, and I know the BOT will be on our side with this 🙂
Will let you know how we get on. I've been racking my brains for a different anti bullying system as the one at school doesn't work. What I have figured out is, many of the bullies have their own issues. Am trying to find the common ground and it seems to be the mental health of all.
If I discover some awesome tools etc will def share. Kids around here are killing themselves, it's our towns dirty secret and needs to be addressed big time.
Feeling really positive about it all, it's great that a couple of well known high up community members are on board, that's a huge deal. Progress yay and motivation from the well being budget, excellent 🙂
That is the sort of action NZers should hope to see and be part of if they can, everything that can be improved or resolved is one problem less and is a "saving" – it is up to NZers to add momentum behind govt to improve NZers lives it is not just a money issue though that is necessary a changed mindset is crucial.
Annual net migration has remained at high levels since the December 2014 year, Stats NZ said today.
“Since late 2014, annual net migration has ranged between 48,000 and 64,000,” population indicators manager Tehseen Islam said.
“The only previous time net migration was at these levels was for a short period in the early 2000s.”
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1906/S00128/net-migration-remains-high.htm
(I presume they mean that this means high immigration levels rather than high emigration levels – migration just means movement.)
A good education will help you into a job and start to your adult life. An excellent education will place you above those with a good education.
Education
Parents Gone Wild: High Drama Inside D.C.’s Most Elite Private School
At Sidwell Friends, the high school of Chelsea Clinton and the Obama children, college counselors find themselves besieged by Ivy-obsessed families. 5/6/2019
School officials have repeatedly warned parents, who represent the pinnacle of elite Washington, about their offensive conduct. In January, the head of the school, Bryan Garman, sent a remarkable letter to parents of seniors in which he demanded that they stop “the verbal assault of employees.” He also reiterated a policy banning them from recording conversations with counselors and making calls to counselors from blocked phone numbers. Garman also suggested that some parents were responsible for the “circulation of rumors about students….”
Anger, vitriol, and deceptiveness have come to define highly selective college admissions. In the now notorious Varsity Blues scandal, the desire from wealthy parents to get their children into such elite institutions as Yale and the University of Southern California led them to lie on applications and obtain fake SAT scores. At Sidwell Friends, one of America’s most famous Quaker schools, the desire manifested itself in bad behaviors—including parents spreading rumors about other students, ostensibly so that their children could get a leg up, the letter said.
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/06/sidwell-friends-college-admissions-varsity-blues/591124/
(Sidwell Friends, run by the Quakers – Heaven Knows, Anything Goes!)
I think this shows Affluenza.
In 2007, British psychologist Oliver James asserted that there was a correlation between the increasing occurrence of affluenza and the resulting increase in material inequality: the more unequal a society, the greater the unhappiness of its citizens.[5] Referring to Vance Packard's thesis The Hidden Persuaders on the manipulative methods used by the advertising industry, James related the stimulation of artificial needs to the rise in affluenza. To highlight the spread of affluenza in societies with varied levels of inequality, James interviewed people in several cities including Sydney, Singapore, Auckland, Moscow, Shanghai, Copenhagen and New York.
In 2008 James wrote that higher rates of mental disorders were the consequence of excessive wealth-seeking in consumerist nations.[6] In a graph created from multiple data sources, James plotted "Prevalence of any emotional distress" and "Income inequality", attempting to show that English-speaking nations have nearly twice as much emotional distress as mainland Europe and Japan: 21.6 percent vs 11.5 percent
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affluenza
Chlöe Swarbrick got owned by the Hosk this morning There is a time when a bit of life experience under your belt makes a difference, than simply quoting selective research papers on legalising pot I was in Portugal last year ( Lisbon) and smelt it everywhere day and night To say legalising pot won’t increase its propensity in society is silly at best
*naive*
Relying on your age rather than your arguments, as the husk did, do not "own" an argument.
As for Portugal, you must still be feeling the effects, going by your punctuation.
Should that be does not vs “do not” Flocky
muphry strikes again, lol
Still, just because he's 54 doesn't mean hosking knows a darn thing.
He also implied people with no children are naive. Not a position I'd expect Hoskings to take.
And the truth is Hoskings lost it and started ranting which is a sure sign he himself felt he lost the argument.
I felt he conveyed the thoughts of many being lectured by naive 24 yr old who really knows or has experience squat
Only the hypersensitive and insecure right wing snowflakes would feel they were being lectured to.
No idea what you’re talking about but I agree that individual and/or anecdotal ‘evidence’ always trumps research papers, each and every time. For example, I once knew a person who had been heavy smoker all his life and he lived until he was 85. So, to say that smoking causes lung cancer and kills is just rubbish. BTW, he died a horrible death from colon cancer because he used to smoke fish.
I knew a bloke who drove his Maserati blind drunk all the time and he never crashed.
There is a time when a bit of life experience under your belt makes a difference, than simply quoting selective research papers…
Thank you for declaring this preference for anecdata that supports your personal prejudice over actual research. It explains a lot about your comments.
Note the proviso “selective” PM End of day people will decide and I suspect the majority will go with common sense, real life experience and values over social science quackery A discipline dominated by leftwing bias and constructs
Are you sure… twitter seems to think otherwise….
https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=news&q=hosking&src=tren
Twitter is an echo chamber of left Cinny, it not the real world Look I get it was a bit of ad hominium from Hoskins, but for this subject I do feel age and experience, having kids etc does have bearing on your credibility with this topic God listening to Chlöe was like listening to a 12 year old lecture you on climate change
What do you think propensity means beewee?
Dunno gabs, maybe some one who likes to put child like cute little ee on the end on every one handle continuously and thinks it’s hilarious 😊
https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/391859/barren-underworld-coral-bleaching-and-the-perilous-forecast-for-pacific-reefs
What's most worrying, said Andrew Thurber, an associate professor of ocean ecology at the University of Oregon, is that nobody saw this year's event coming.
…"We didn't expect it, we didn't predict it," Dr Thurber said. "The models didn't predict this to be a bleaching year. Mo'orea wasn't supposed to bleach and yet all of a sudden something's shifted and it's an incredibly widespread event."
Coral bleaching happens when the sea temperature rises to a point that puts coral under intense stress, causing them to separate from the plant-like organisms that give their colours, as well as their oxygen, waste filtration and up to 90 percent of their energy….
"The only time that it last hit those temperatures was 2016, when it hit for a few days," Dr Thurber said. "It's hit it numerous, numerous times this year."
While Dr Thurber added that it was too early to conclude whether this was a trend being seen at Mo'orea, studies from other parts of the world paint a dire picture for much of the planet – and especially the Pacific's – coral reefs , particularly as the oceans continue to warm rapidly, in some cases up to 40 percent more than previously forecast….
Last year's report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that if global warming was limited to 1.5 degrees celsius – the target set and signed up to by most governments under the Paris Agreement – coral reefs would still decline by between 70 and 90 percent.
And a study published in April by Australian scientists, which focussed on the Great Barrier Reef, found that global warming had hampered its ability to recover from large-scale bleaching in both 2016 and 2017. The researchers said the time between bleachings would shrink as global warming intensified.
"Dead corals don't make babies," said the study's lead author, Professor Terry Hughes from Australia's James Cook University, in a news release."We have noticed more events like that, high temperatures," Mr Siu said. "We've also seen more wave events coming from hurricanes."…
Coral reefs effectively act as the lungs of the ocean, producing more than half of the oxygen that humans breathe and, in turn, regulating both air and water temperatures.
Their rigid shape also acts as a barrier, their friction slowing the force of waves and acting as a barrier against waves and erosion, both of which are increasing with climate change.
Reefs are also home to about a quarter of all marine life, ranging from microscopic plankton, through to colourful reef fish, sharks and giant whales. This life is critical for communities like Mo'orea and Tahiti, which depend on them for food, protection, recreation and livelihoods.
Not waiting
When an 18-year-old Titouan Bernicot first saw the coral bleaching of 2016, he was surfing with his school friends. Shocked by what he saw, he wasn't going to wait for either the territorial or the French government to act.
"We started to realise the coral reefs give us everything in our lives," he said. The waves they surfed on. The fish they ate when they returned to Mo'orea's white shores. The jobs their parents relied on – tourism, the pearl industry, fishing. "Everything is all connected," he said.
Motivated to act, Mr Bernicot and friends formed the Mo'orea Coral Gardeners, a group that set about trying to restore the island's reef. It started with them trying to replant coral cuttings in other parts of the reef.Three years later, Mr Bernicot's movement is bigger than he ever imagined….
Mr Bernicot said this year's bleaching has been disheartening. "This year, everyone is concerned," he said. But if anything, he added, it's given him further drive. His planting effort has intensified, and he's more motivated than ever.
"It's simple. If we do nothing, nothing is going to happen, and the reef will die." "If we do nothing my children will ask me, 'why didn't you do something?'"
Just what we didn't need. A great big retail chain spilling across land in Auckland that we could have grown food on and had social housing on.
But no this monster is going to take business off established retailers large and small and undercut everybody and the profits will go offshore. There are people going to be employed. But there will be businesses closing down – stalemate. And Phil Goff is there smiling. It is supposed to be good. All this buying of land for business to tap into our veins and bleed us to death. But the land speculators will be smiling. They are on a gold mine.
And there will be more biggies. We have IKEA. FGS we are only a country of 4 million people and we have plenty of competition already. We have low wages so that NZrs can't afford what these stores are offering. But with luck they will be able to keep pumping food into themselves so they can have the strength to go out and buy, buy. Wanting the big stores is like star-struck rural innocents who get a supermarket and a mall and think they have made it. It has a superficial charm but the Walmart success for the owners has been a bad dream of small shop owners in the heart of town; it cuts them out.
All about it. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12238980
Costco's coming: World's second-largest retailer unveils NZ store
We are presented with the big figures – gasp everyone.
Costco US $138 billion
750 Warehouse stores
Employs 245,000+ people
94m members worldwide (Best buys to members about $60 annual fee)
When we want to edge up our minimum wage – guess who will be against that. And threatening us with some legal action for loss of profits. Why a raise will be likened to some socialist plot to nationalise the country. Whoa!
I wonder if they'll somehow manage to make no profit here as well.
That is an interesting thought for these interesting times. It could be that the foreign owners will decide to go green by adopting a no footprint-that-might-contain-money principle when they tidy up their finances for each quarter's market report. The site will be left clean and free from dirty lucre.
When I was posted to Melbourne many moons ago, my partner now wife and I went to Costco located in the Docklands area for a bit of a look. Unless you were prepared to buy in bulk and I mean bulk aka you have one of those big yankie F250 utes or bigger. It was rather pointless signing up for the annual fee as we would've probably bought a enough bog roll and tissues to last a year and as I had a five bedroom Defence House storage wasn't a issue for us two.
We got a better choice and better savings between Coles, Woollies, Aldi, IGA all within a 1-2km radius.
In other words Costco wasn't much chop for us two.
So just as we are trying to introduce the idea of buying less, and reusing and recycling, this crowd will be trying to sell in bulk offering cheap prices based on a single item but you have to buy 10 towels etc.
It catches the psychology of someone poor buying on price, but they can't control themselves from paying $15 when the only wanted one towel if it was $1.50. The shopper feels they got a deal at a bargain price, but don't recognise they're being sucked in and now have 9 towels on their hands that they have to store somewhere or give away or try and sell on themselves.
Agree with you on this. EKF mentioned Aldis a German chain that we use all the time. Key point of difference, smaller stores typically only about 1000m2 and lots of them. About one store per 20,000 people. All the key grocery and fresh food items are there, but a limited selection. Instead of dozen brands of say yoghurt there will be only two. Also they have a good line of in house organics.
The other fascinating thing they do, which is a bit of a hook I will admit, is that the centre aisle of the store is used for a constantly rotating selection of all sorts of things you don't expect, everything literally from power tools, clothing, appliances, workout gear, camping kit and the like. Often good quality and great prices. What they do is buy a line in bulk, then use the empty backloading from the grocery lines to rotate to the next store. It's often only there for a week or two at most so you have to make up your mind or you miss out.
The upshot is very good value for money. Two of us typically shop about once every ten days, and will fill a standard trolley for about A$130 – 150 depending on how many splurge items we got. On the whole I think we spend about 65% less on our groceries than in NZ.
They have the buying power and it's damn hard to compete with them. There will have to be a bond formed between NZ buyers and certified NZ owned stores so that we support each other. We have been conditioned to think globalised and our own enterprises have been sidelined and gone bust. If we want a country where people can earn a living at a job that pays for a person's livelihood which we are told is so important, then people are going to have to put their money where there mouth is. When you think that technology is doing so many out of a job, how do the planners expect to people to manage. There is still an attitude of derision for 'lazy' people by others who hardly know how to do anything for themselves, and never waste time thinking!
If we want a country where people can earn a living at a job that pays for a person's livelihood which we are told is so important, then people are going to have to put their money where there mouth is.
Not going to happen. People will buy best value for money … as they judge value.
Some purchases I make a point of buying local, because like you I do place a value on it, especially where there is added relationship value from sales and support expertise.
Then there is this interesting model with a Japanese chain Muji that has a subtly different business model, also reducing selection but offering product longevity and value.
There is an inherent tension between the efficiency and innovation of globalisation and the desire to retain local identity and diversity. It's plays out at every scale, from villages, towns, cities and nations and largely it's a healthy thing.
not going to happen shark people will vote with their wallets as the way it should be. If the values you highlight are real Costco are rooted, however I suspect you are in a small minority ;
A very interesting article from the people who compile the World Peace Index, saying the CC is going to be a major threat to world peace in the coming years/ decades with the Asia Pacific region the biggest concern and according to the ABC up to a million Aussies will be affected “No shit Sherlock” was my response while the article.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-12/climate-change-hazards-global-peace-index-report/11198144
Well that went well
Not
Link about Afghans
[lprent: Worst link I have seen for a while. I reduced it to a readable form. ]
Kia ora The Am Show.
Sugary drinks need the ass taxed out of them all forms of sugar in our food needs to be lowered ma te wa Papatuanuku was not made in a day Jacinda will sort our sugar problem in good time.
Lloyd it hotting up in British politics everyone knows my opinion on brexit and boris it raining here to m8 we need it we are on rain water tank supply.
Our Marae has just been refurbish and new carvings it makes me so proud te whanau have cared and love our Marae it gives Eco Maori a sore face.
Its cool to see you supporting Wahine in hard times the Wahine in the jails need all the help they can get Annah Strettons journey behind bars is the organization Anna has a new book The Raw TRUTH please buy her book and you will be helping these vaunrable Wahine.
Petra I back you in your opinion we need more Maori in management in Oranga tamariki even tho there was a court order for the up lifting of the pepe the glasses that the people who applied and signed the order would not understand the circumstances of the mother and the whanau reo people from a different worlds should not be making choices for the lower class common people you need people who love and understand te tangata to make a fair CALL. I can see we're Ryan is coming from some pepe need to be uplifted for their health and safety. My be a Kau matua needs to sign the papers a well to make the order fairer and un biased.
Ka kite ano
https://youtu.be/qQfetkoGrpU
Eco Maori hopes that they find a cure for the illness of Aotearoa beautiful flightless Parrots the kakapo. I hope doc gets all the resources that they need to fix this problem.
World’s fattest parrot, the endangered kākāpō, could be wiped out by fungal infection
Seven of the birds native to New Zealand have died, with just 142 adults remaining
The world’s fattest parrot is facing an existential threat in the form of a dangerous fungal infection which has already endangered a fifth of its species.
Seven of New Zealand’s native kākāpō have died in recent months after falling victim to the respiratory disease aspergillosis. The latest was on Tuesday, where a 100-day-old chick died at the Auckland Zoo
The nocturnal and flightless parrot ingratiated itself with world after it mated with a zoologist’s head during a BBC documentary. The incident led it to being described as the “party parrot” and finding a life-long fan in Stephen Fry.
Kākāpō, whose males can grow to 4.8 pounds (2.2kg), were once found in large numbers all over New Zealand. However, habitat destruction and pest invasion forced the bird to edge of extinction.
Critically endangered kākāpō – the world's fattest parrot – has record breeding season
The discovery of a previously unknown population of kākāpō in the 1970s led to a resurgence of their numbers. The parrot was then the focus of a conservation effort that saw the bird’s population rise from a low of 51 ageing birds to three times that number.
This year, a team of more than 100 scientists, rangers and volunteers worked to make it the biggest breeding season on record.
Despite that effort, Auckland Zoo’s head of veterinary services Dr James Chatterton said the future of the birds hangs in the balance ka kite ano link below.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/13/worlds-fattest-parrot-endangered-kakapo-fungal-infection-new-zealand
Some Eco Maori music for the minute.
https://youtu.be/PWoDSGfSu6o
Kia ora Newshub.
That's the way Paddy it's reporters like you who keep everyone honest
That's cool more funding for cancer research that uses our bodies own defense systems to I'd and eliminate the cancer ka pai.
There was a lot of mist around the motu Mike this morning.
The defense forces needs reliable equipment so the 2 billion spend on the defense forces is long overdue shonky gave tax cuts muppet.
It would be scary whirlpool dryers catching fire I glad we didn't buy that make.
Malisa genetic gain in bovine animals is very important I quite liked the field days to heal of new equipment
Ka kite ano
Kia ora te ao Maori news.
I Winston it is cool that the teachers strike has been called off and they have settled.
The statue smith is just spraying wai into the tawhirimate if he was still in power there would have been no extra money for tangata whenua O Aotearoa they were dishing it out in tax cuts.
Its good that there is a new kuakaupapa being built .
I agree with Jacinda we need to comite to mitigating climate change or our Pacific cousins will lose out
Awesome Mrs Mason for her transaction of a diary of Anne Frank's
Ka kite ano.